Do You Know God?

“But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”

Jeremiah 31:33-34 NLT

As I was reading these verses this week, it struck me; I love it that God is now within intimately writing on my heart and renewing my mind with understanding, but what about the second half of this promise? The Lord says that in the new covenant we will not need to tell our neighbors and relatives that they ‘should know the Lord’ because they will know him already. I don’t see this all around me, do you? I see people, even Christians, aching to know God deeply without realizing what the ache is. In fact my life’s focus through Visionwriters has actually become helping people realize that they can and should know God more deeply … to eliminate from their world the ache of a silent God…

So I asked the Lord about this, why do we see and enjoy the first half of this promise but not the second half? Why do we still need to tell others that they should know the Lord?

This turned out, of course, to be one of those faulty, illogical questions.

Father pointed out to me that this isn’t a promise; it’s a COVENANT. I haven’t done deep study on the meaning of covenant, but I know that covenant goes both ways. When we enter the new covenant, we exchange our very lives. We ‘die’ to the old life and are born again spiritually, in union with Christ. That’s what happens in the spiritual realm when we enter the new covenant, even though we don’t understand it all at the time.

These are facts.

Oswald Chambers says: “When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God IS born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life.”

Whether we starve or nourish that life, doesn’t alter the fact that if we have entered this covenant, God is writing Himself on our hearts and minds and we do know Him. That was His side of the covenant, and He is keeping it. Believe this.

Our side of this new covenant is, not to sacrifice the life of an animal anymore as in the old covenant, or even to keep all the rules, but now we give Him our very lives. We surrender our old identity and let it go to receive and recognize our new life in union with His Life. No more external sacrifices and performance, now its internal surrender and obedience. No more trying to become perfect by our own human effort, now it’s admitting our weaknesses and receiving His Spirit. (see Gal 3:3)

This new covenant far exceeds the old. This new covenant changes your very identity so that ALL who enter it DO know Him deep within.

But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You ARE controlled by the Spirit IF you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) Rom 8:9 NLT

If God lives in you, He does control you, if you have entered the new covenant, you do know God, by union.

So what remains to be done? Of course, it’s just something to SEE! We must believe and cultivate this. We have an uncultivated friendship with God. He is there, we are His children, we must embark on the learning curve. We remove the ‘veil’ by turning to see God at every opportunity, by paying attention to what He is saying within, through His word, to what He is writing on our hearts and minds. He will teach us who we are and Who He is and we will discover that He has absorbed us into His Life and we now flow as one.

For His Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God’s children. (Rom 8:16)

So I don’t need to tell you to know Him if you are ‘born again’; you do know Him. Cultivate it: He is always speaking to you. Recognize Him. He says,

“I devise creative ways to reveal Myself to you and I rejoice when you are attentive.”

Offering

by Kelly Minter