KNOWING SOMEONE

Knowing, or knowing about someone.

Imagine if I told you about my best friend. I gave you all the information that I had gleaned over years of relationship with this person. Later on, someone asks you if you know David Hall. Your answer would be in the negative. But if someone was to ask me if I knew David Hall, my answer would be absolutely in the affirmative….right?  I want you to relate that to your knowledge [or lack thereof] of God. Most pew-warmers have heard the question, probably many times, ‘Do you know the Lord?’ It has been part of the ‘spiritual jargon’ for a long time. And if somebody asked you that question, and you had been warming pews for years, your answer would be a resounding YES….right? What they are really wanting to know is, are you a Christian? The two ought to be mirrors of each other. God’s life instruction manual assures us that no one gets to heaven unless they know God. That means, literally, that you cannot be a Christian if you don’t know God.

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Jn. 17:3

He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.  2 Thes. 1:8-9

With that fact established, I want you to ask yourself, ‘do I really know God?’ You may well have learned some important facts about God over time, so there may well be some knowledge about God posted to your memory banks, but just as it was true for your ‘knowledge’ of David Hall, you would need to answer in the negative. There really is a vast difference between knowing someone, and knowing about that one. The essence of really knowing someone, is the degree of relationship you have with that one.

My personal experience displays this clearly. I was brought up in a very fundamental, evangelical, ‘Christian’ home. From birth to the time my dad sent me off to boarding school ‘to teach me to behave myself,’ I was bombarded with information about God and Jesus. I won prizes at Sunday School for knowledge of, and memorizing scripture. I preached my first sermon, in my teens. Several years later, after trying everything this world has to offer, I married, and truly wanted to be the best husband any woman could ever imagine. We never missed the service every Sunday and did whatever we could to help in any way with the operational needs of the church, week by week. I desperately wanted to love God, as I knew from my upbringing, it was the greatest commandment.  But standing directly in the way of that was a terrible sexual lust problem which I fought against with all my strength. My logic [I have always been a very logical person] told me I simply could not love God and be mastered by Satan at the same time. I spent hundreds of hours searching several versions of the bible, desperately and very seriously searching for freedom for myself. I got zero help from pastors or elders or ‘Christian authors.’ I literally hated myself for being such a low-down pervert. But nothing changed. I was still completely mastered by this Satanic addiction. Please believe me, I learned an awful lot more about God in that time.

Then one day, the thought came to me [God spoke to me?] that my motive and goal was all about me. Colin really desperately wanted to feel a whole lot better about himself. That may sound weird to you, but it makes a whole lot of sense to me. Many hours of serious and passionate study of God’s word later, God revealed Himself to me, which taught me to fear him, and I repented. The close and meaningful relationship I developed with God, as I spent many hours with Him, in His autobiography, truly transformed my life to one that was pleasing to Him, rather than pleasing to me. I searched with a completely open mind and heart, with a willingness to reject anything I had ever been taught. And I have loved myself and God ever since. What a miracle!

My marriage went from regular fights and discussing which lawyer we would see about a divorce procedure, to something that is truly wonderful, and glorifying to God. And it’s all clearly spelt out for us all within the covers of the bible. God desperately desires that each of you experience what I have experienced. If churches and their pulpits were filled with people like me, America would not be where she is today. That’s not a boast in any way. I once believed all that nonsense about trusting Jesus, having faith in Him, believing in Him, accepting Him as my Lord and Savior, believing that He paid the price for all my sins with His precious blood, etc. It made zero difference to my life. And I ‘believed in Him’ so hard that it hurt! All that, is simply semantics, and more like voodooism or hypnosis, than Christianity. That is why every preacher admits to sin, and tells his congregation they are all sinners as well. They all know that their gospel does not work. That is why there has been a rapid decline in the numbers of citizens claiming to be affiliated with any religion over the past decades. That is why so much attention is given to the entertainment aspect of church services today. Preachers must make everyone feel good! They are all desperately trying to maintain the numbers of attendees at their Sunday Social Club meetings.

Please, believe me, the gospel that has been preached ever since the Holiness Movement petered out, has been totally false. If you are courageous enough to be brutally honest with your-self, just answer this. Has your life been transformed from sinner to saint or to a brand-new creation that is pleasing to God? That is what God promises all through His word for all who get to know Him, learn to fear Him, and repent.

Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.  Acts 10:34-35     

My book explains God’s true gospel message, with more of His word than mine, between the covers. I simply do NOT have an opinion. I simply believe God’s word, and it has miraculously transformed my life, so I know it works. ‘A Nation Broken’ is available at Amazon or B & N.