‘You know neither me, nor my Father: if you knew me, you would know my Father also. (John 8:19)
January 8th…….Happy Birthday! I’m not sure who else that’s appropriate for, but for WBVN we first flipped the power switch on 1/8/1990. That means we’ve had the pleasure of broadcasting for more than 18 million minutes the Gospel Message. We’ve created 420 newsletters to express the ministry’s purposes. We’ve created 233 concert events. Numbers we could never have imagined in 1988 when we made the application for FM 104.5 to the Federal Communications Commission for a broadcast license.
I sat down just now and tried to think of what I’d say if someone asked me to summarize how or maybe why WBVN. I thought of the philosophical, thought of the financial, thought of the people, wonderful people. Thirty-five years ago began something different than anything I’d ever experienced before. I had been involved with helping manage 4 businesses over the years. I’d been in a partnership with my father-in-law in owning a business for a time. What one thing ‘sent me over the edge’? What caused Jane and me to become more vulnerable, to welcome that, and yet become even more secure than in the life she and I had lived prior? What was different in the summer of 1988 thru January 1990? I think the answer is expressed in two words: ‘knowing God.’ There had been a revelation of Who He was in both our hearts, and what He purposed and desired for believers. It was similar to having a friend that you know very well and you completely trust, simply because you know them so very well. Like a friend that had proven His friendship.
I trust I can say ‘knowing God’ not arrogantly but humbly; amazed that knowing Him is even possible at all– even possible for you and me. Simply, we’re purposed to know Him. Jesus came to reveal Him, and the Bible was written over thousands of years to try and explain Him to us. I think the most important thing that led me to lay down a business career, caused me to load up a wife and three kids and travel the ministry road, was simply coming to the place of being convinced of ‘knowing God,’ both in His character and purpose. In many of these letters I’ve included the scripture when Jesus asked Peter, ‘who do you say I am?’ (Mark 8:29, Luke 9:20) Forty years ago reading that, discovering how important that question was, was the ‘kick off’ to the experiences of the next 40 years. Once learned, knowing Who He is came to mean a new ability to trust Him more. I think ‘knowing God’ is progressive: first an alive spirit, then the saving of the soul (mind, will and emotions) and finally a new heavenly body.
To me, knowing God means to know His Love, His Wisdom and His Will for our lives. The Greek words in Scripture imply two different facets of knowing God: One (oida*) means to know God without any effort on our part. It’s a spiritual knowing revealed to us; it’s a gift by the Spirit, a revelation. Secondly (ginosko**) is a learned knowing. In John 13-7, Jesus said to Peter: ‘What I do, you
do not know, but you will later, by experience and revelation.’ In John 8-55, Jesus states that: ‘You do not know (*-haven’t learned yet) Him, but I know (**-intuitively) Him. Jesus came to reveal** Him. Simplified, we can’t know Him in what I’ll call ‘the big way (intuitively)’ except by a spiritual revelation of Him. Natural man cannot know the things of God, for they are foolishness to him. (1Cor. 2:14) It takes a spiritual ‘awaking,’ that’s the eternal life given to us with a new birth. Paul teaches later that ‘for this cause…I do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge (2-learned knowledge) of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding…increasing in the knowledge of God.’ (Col. 1:9) We come to a place of knowing His wisdom, His will, His love, His power, His faithfulness, His righteousness, His truth, His goodness, His mercy, His long suffering, His gentleness, His caring: each one of those immeasurable to us. While some may express Him as an invisible God, all these things mentioned above can be clearly seen in His Word, and in the Word’s revelation in Christ. Those can exist and can be seen in our daily lives. If these things were not experienced and true this Gospel could not have been propagated for some 2000 years now.
In Acts 17:23, Paul mentions an ‘unknown god’ in contrast to the God Paul taught. Paul’s is the God we’re purposed to come to know. Society’s gods can be made of wood, stone, and metal images. Man’s gods can be made in their mind. Our God has revealed Himself through Christ Jesus and is made in our hearts. He is Spirit, and as I’ve stated in many of these letters, you can’t ‘see/know’ God by what we see with our eyes or hearing what’s going on in the world. We can’t use our senses; we must become spiritual. (John 4-23, 24) While the world around us might look bleak, sad, and most often, discouraging, we can ‘know’ the One True God, both intuitively and by learning. Our God is doing what is right, what is wise, what is best. I think we’re required by the very nature of our Faith to be assured that He is ‘able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. (Eph 3:20) Over the years Jane and I have had to come face to face with trusting God in all kinds of situations. He, at those times, being the only answer for different situations.
This ‘knowing God’ thing is the closest expression to what we’ve relied upon the most during each of those moments. Not necessarily understanding each situation, but knowing Him and learning to trust in each one. We found a home place by having Faith, yielding to His Ways, His Plans, discovering His Hope. Expressed simply: being comfortable with ‘what does He want, rather than what do I want.’
It’s interesting to go back into the Old Testament and look at some of the expression about Israel’s rejection of the God of Abraham. What caused so much of their trouble? The information is obvious. A major reason for Israel missing the mark often is found in Isaiah 1:3:
‘The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib;
But Israel does not Know, My people do not consider’ (their God)
What follows in that chapter is not pretty, however it’s very similar to today. Not knowing, not considering and learning to know God has a very expensive price tag and severe consequences.
We learn in Luke 19:42-44, the lack of knowing Him aborted Israel’s peace. There is a day coming when all will know Him from the least of them unto the greatest of them. (Jeremiah 31:34) Isaiah joins in (11:9), ‘the earth shall be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.’ Globally, we’re not there yet but personally, we can be. Knowing Him is significantly important to experiencing the fullness of His Freedom, Peace, Hope and Joy right now.
The prophets were not talking of knowing about Him. They are not suggesting God is an unsolvable mystery, not referring to an ‘unknowable’ God. They speak of a God that can and will be known. If we open up the garden of our lives, He desires to walk and talk with us just as in the original environment in the Garden of Eden, as personal as the relationship with Adam and Eve.
As truthfully as I can put it, things dramatically changed in 1988. We came to ‘know Him’ in a new way. Eternal life comes with a believer’s new birth experience. But to experience God ‘to the full’ in our lives today, we learn more and more each day. Everything available of God was not cooked into that one first moment, there was more to come. There can be a second revelation and with it comes the fulfillment of so many of the promises of God. With that knowledge, we can worship God in the way of Jeremiah 9:23-24:
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom
Neither let the mighty man glory in his might
Let not the rich man glory in his riches
But let him that glory, glory in this;
He understands and knows Me.
That’s so much the key to the Gospel. I would never have had the courage to do WBVN without a revelation of the character of God. That brought great confidence, not in me, but in Him. Add to that the word ‘unction.’ That’s a story I’ve never fully shared about, but without coming to know Him and embracing what I believe was His ‘unction’: no bvn. That rings very similar to John 4:18: ‘There is no fear (fright) in Love (agape): but perfect Love casts out fear, because fear has punishment; and he that fears is not made perfect (complete) in Love.’ I guess you could simply say: ‘I came to know God is Agape.’