“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. … I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days.” (Deuteronomy 30:15,19-20)
“God can take care of us when we pass through the waters. God can take care of us when we pass through the fires…What you have to do is take your stand at God’s side.” — Dwight Moody
“The worst the devil is allowed to do is to burn off the bonds of God’s children. If Christ be with us, the direst afflictions can only loosen our earthly bonds, and set us free to soar the higher.” — Dwight Moody
I know… (Revelation 2:2, 3, 9, 13; 3:1, 8, 15)
Ken Jennings is perhaps the most famous contestant from the game show Jeopardy. He won 74 consecutive games and earned more than $3.5 million from all his appearances. He eventually wrote the book Braniac about being a trivia “know it all.”
Jennings and imitators like him don’t really “know it all.” They have considerable knowledge about a limited scope of information, but they really only know a small part of a small part of everything that is possibly known. In fact, there’s only one “know it all,” and His name is Jesus.
In His seven messages to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus reveals that He really does know it all. Here is some of what He shares that He knows:
This is by no means an exhaustive list of a mere manager or consultant who has come in and done a targeted evaluation. These are the insightful comments of the Lord God who knows every detail of every detail. He knows the first-hand, intimate experiential knowledge of every aspect of these churches. He knows their works, their motives for those works, the effects of those works, and the opposition and obstacles to those works. More than knowing the church’s works, He also knows the churches…their heart, their faith, their hopes, their fears, their frustrations, their needs, their resources, and their destinies.
What an encouragement it is to us to know that God knows our church. He knows our history and our future. He knows our efforts and our motives behind them. He knows our needs and He knows our opportunities. Praise God that Jesus is our know-it all!
He knows it all.
PRAYER STARTER
Help me cast my worries to You, who knows the answers to every question, and also the answers to the questions I don’t even know to ask.
(I wrote this devotional as part of Scottsdale Bible’s book Renew: Daily Devotionals for our 50th Year)
(adapted from Two are Better than One, by David Mains & Steve Bell