Heart Tracks - For I Know....

    A.W. Tozer asks the question, "Are you Bible taught, or Spirit taught?"  In this question, he was stating that one can know everything the Bible says, and can expound on its history, the cultural and historical settings in which it was written, and quote chapter and verse at will.  They know much about God, and much of His word, but the deep question here is, do they know God?  They, we, may know the words He has spoken, but do we know the meaning in the words?  Bible taught people know what He has said, but only those taught of the Holy Spirit can know the meaning of what He has said, and what He continues to say right now.  Bible taught people, I think, seek to modify their lives along the lines of what their intellects, their human understanding, believes He is saying.  The Spirit taught, have their lives and hearts transformed by His Living Word.  Our lives are not modified from the outside in, but transformed, redone, from the inside out.
    I heard a brother recently speak about what 2 Timothy 1:12 is saying.  The apostle Paul writes, "For I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day."  He simply said that he didn't merely know about the One he believed in, but knew Him, His personality, His ways, His love, His mercy, justice, and faithfulness.
He knew this first hand.  Not perfectly or completely to be sure, but he knew Him as Moses did, "face to face, as a friend."  Because of this, he was convinced, persuaded as some translations render it, that the God he knew intimately, would be totally faithful to keep that, all of that, which he had entrusted Him with, till that day....and beyond that day.  Simply, because he knew, he was convinced.  He knows this because he was not merely Bible taught, but Spirit taught.  Taught by the One who teaches by giving us personal revelation, knowledge, of Himself.  We don't receive information about a person, but a Person.  All the fullness of that Person.  All the fullness of the Father.
   The circumstances of life can be, and so often are, overwhelming, crushing.  So many collapse under their weight.  As writer Christine Caine has said, "There's a force much greater than our circumstances, and that's the truth of His Word."  The power of our circumstances cannot stand against the power of His life revealed in and through His Word.  If we know Him, in and through His living Word, we cannot be anything but persuaded, convinced, that He is able to keep us, and everything connected to us, in the midst of that day of need, and every day beyond it. 
   For you and I then, it comes down to this; do we know, are we persuaded, that the force of His life is greater and mightier than the sum of all our circumstances and need?  Bible taught, or Spirit taught?  Circumstance taught, or God taught?  Which, really, are you and I?

Blessings,
Pastor O