Jul 29, 2022
Can you know what you don't know?
Let's have a little fun with this today. Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again today on the Follower of One podcast. You're listening to episode 727, and I am grateful. Thank you very much.
We talked last time about 1st Corinthians 8, and today I want to talk about chapter eight verses two and three, I'm reading from the New American Standard. "If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by Him." This is a little confusing because of the way the apostle Paul wrote this letter and often in Greek, he and the him get a little complicated. We were talking about being things sacrificed to idols, and this is actually calling us, this whole passage, this whole chapter, and the next are challenging us on how we use the freedom that we have in Jesus.
In the last episode, we talked about things sacrificed to idols, but it wasn't so much that as it was knowledge and how knowledge makes us arrogant, but love draws us to other people. "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone supposes, he knows anything. He has not yet known as he ought to know, but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him."
This challenge for me is I often think I have the answer. Do you? Do you ever catch yourself thinking you have the answer to a particular problem? The world is bigger than we can imagine, and God is more powerful than we can imagine. So this verse challenges me and calls me up a little short because whenever I think I know something, I'm reminded that I don't yet know as I ought to. There is still some gap in our understanding. In 1st Corinthians 13, just a few chapters after this, he talks about how we now can only see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face, at some point in time when we get to heaven, we will know, as we have been fully known.
You see, God sees us, but we only see what He allows us to see of Him. He's blocked and masked. We see Jesus. He's the version of God that we get, and we can see Him through His Word, we can see the Holy Spirit working in our lives. We see God in nature. We have this very limited understanding of God, and Paul's reminding us here that even though knowledge would make us arrogant, knowledge would puff us up.
Love builds us up, it builds others up, and therefore let's pass on the knowledge and go straight for the love. I want to remember that I don't know what I think I know. Often, I'm so certain. How about you? Today, can we be a little less certain? Today, can we be quicker to love and slower to judge? Today, can we be quicker to do things for others instead of comparing their perspective to ours? Can we be quicker to serve other people and call ourselves out of our own little comfort zone of being right all the time? That's my challenge. I don't wanna be puffed up. I want to be someone who builds others up and I believe that our calling as Christians is to be those who build up our world.
Our world needs to be built up badly, so please consider joining us in that today. I wanna challenge you as a follower of Jesus, to find someone to build up today. Love someone instead of criticizing them and let's see how far that goes and what difference it makes in our world.
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Thanks very much.