The most important and greatest knowledge we need to attain is the knowledge of God. John 17:3 tells us eternal life is knowing God and the One whom He has sent. We need to come to know God if we want to know ourselves.

If you really met with God, that meeting will result in a life of obedience and reverence. Once you meet Him, you will be overtaken by His grace, love, amazing wonderful greatness that we cannot but confess that “God I am only a sinner, what do I do? Save me!” When He speaks the Word, we cannot but follow and obey.

1. Am I righteous or a sinner?

We are raised in a righteous environment, many times we run the danger of thinking we are better than others. It is a mistake to think I have good faith and am more righteous just because I am a Christian and have been going to church for many years.

Apostle Paul couldn’t boast because he said he was just a sinner. He confessed it is not that he was really faithful, although he is not there, God considered him faithful, and he realized that is grace. I pray we too may realise that although we are weak, we fall short, God still considers us faithful.

In today’s church, there are too many people who are not honest about themselves. There are too many Pharisees, rather than criticizing their own faith, they point fingers at others, they consider themselves victims of the system, pastor, decisions of the church, nation, or any organization. They considered themselves as having already done enough for God. Why such a phenomenon? Because there are less people who actually have an ongoing relationship with God, either they think they have an imaginary fake relationship, or they boast only of what they have in the past. Because they lived a life of Christianity with human know how and human systems, rather than the power and ability of the Holy Spirit.

(i) First I am potentially a much greater sinner and much weaker than I realise
If opportunity and circumstances are given, we will all fall. We think our sinfulness has been uprooted, but it is still there. Just that the grace of God has sealed it and kept it from growing. However that seed of sin and wicked will sprout and shoot up when we allow Satan to start watering it.

May we continue to humble ourselves realising how weak each and everyone of us really are, so that God made increase and His grace will abound as time goes by.

(ii) I am the most precious and honourable in the eyes of God
On an island off the coast of Korea about 40-50 years, there was a town. Whenever there is a storm, different dishes, bowls, ceramic plates would float in from the sea. The people there were very superstitious. They said the people who died in shipwrecks had their souls trapped in these dishes and whoever took the bowls home would bring the bad spirits home. So adults would come and break all the dishes. One day a man moved to the island. He was not superstitious at all and took a bowl back for his dog. His friend working in the Seoul government visited him and asked to borrow the bowl. The guy took it to the science lab and evaluated it to be more than $300,000 worth.

In the eyes of God, each of you look like this dog food bowl. It depends on who looks at you. The world will try to break us, people will use us in the lowest form to contain dog food, but in the eyes of God, you are much more valuable.

Are we not the citizens of the kingdom of heaven? Isn’t God behind us? He sent Jesus and paid the cost of His life to save us.

2. Am I an outer or inner man?

We know the right thing to do but sometimes our bodies do not cooperate. It is because we have our outer man and our inner man. The outer man responds to human thoughts, the inner man responds to the Word of God. God sees our inner man.

3. Am I spiritual or fleshly?

It is the spirit that knows the heart of God. The natural man will not agree, but the spiritual man will understand the Word of God.

Please believe you are a heavenly spiritual being and what we do on this earth will affect what is happening in heaven. I believe God has given us a task to bind and to loose on this earth. Let us therefore not just be fleshly and be limited by fleshly things we see and experience in this body but have our eyes fixed on something deeper, further, higher.

This Word of God is not just sweet to our ears, it is medicine. However when you only want to eat sweet things you will get spiritual diabetes. Likewise when you only want to eat meat, you get high cholesterol problems. Sometimes the Word is bitter, and scolds us. Sometimes the Word is sweet and encourages us. The Word is a balanced diet.

Our strength and our motivation and joy comes from the spiritual things.

CONCLUSION

In the Bible we see God’s people going through afflictions, trials, hardships, and difficulties in their lives. Through these experiences and stages of their lives, their eyes to the spiritual world have opened and they were able to enter into that spiritual world.

No matter how ugly you may be, spiritually or physically, how bad a situation we may be going through, God considers you wonderful, you are precious to Him. He wants us to wake up into His world and He is working in us. Even when you feel like God is abandoning me, not answering my prayer, God’s grace is working in you.
AMEN