GAINING KNOWLEDGE THAT PROFITS
I had a dream where I was seeing a person putting something that looked like fertilizer on some potted plants. The plants were still very young. They were new growth. But as the fertilizer was put into the pots, the plants just instantly grew. In a matter of seconds, what was just an inch or two in height suddenly became as tall as 20 inches. They also became very fleshy. They were three inches in diameter. They also started to have faces and arms. However, there seemed to be a maximum point of growth that the plant reached. It was then that it quickly shriveled and transformed back to a small plant. Not only did the plant become small again but it also looked very weak. Then a commentator began to speak. He said that the Bible has spoken of this all along and warned against boosters or instant growth.
Since having this dream, I have contemplated on its message and have taken this as a sober warning on how we ought to progress as a body of believers.
The plant in the dream can represent believers. The fertilizer, on the other hand, can speak of knowledge of the truth. That the plants grew instantly through the fertilizer spoke to me of how knowledge of the truth can project a form of growth. Mentally knowing the truths of the Scripture, especially deep revelations, can really project spirituality. When one speaks in Christian jargon, it is easy to be taken as deep in one’s walk. However, in the dream, the plant that relied on boosters to grow quickly shriveled up and the shriveling revealed its true state. The thought I believe this is conveying is that knowledge of the Word is not enough. In the last days 2 Timothy warns us against perilous men:
The men described in this passage had a form of godliness. Yet, we are warned that they shall also be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. It is a warning to us that we can actually learn how to look spiritual and yet not live the life. While we may not practice such sins in grave ways, how many cannot relate to at least one of those mentioned?
These men who were described here are not simply believers. They are those who have been learning.
This is not to say that we do not need knowledge. But what I seek to emphasize here is that knowledge alone will not be enough. It will not support real and lasting Christian growth. Yes, we certainly need knowledge of God’s Word. It is indispensable in Christian maturity. However, the question that we must ask today is how can knowledge truly become profitable to us. How can we gain not only head knowledge but the very character of knowledge?
From the dream I shared, it was clear to me that we cannot rely on shortcuts. Growth boosters can speed up the development of form but not of power. If something has form but no substance, it is hollow. We certainly do not want to be hollow Christians. We must allow the processes of God to establish us.
HOW THEN CAN WE HAVE NOT JUST FORM BUT POWER?
1. Seek intimacy with Christ
Why should we hunger for communing with God?
It is in the presence of God that we become more like Him. When we see Him as He is we shall become like Him. It is in intimate times with God where we receive breakthroughs in our hearts. It is in those quiet times with God, where God visits and an aspect of His nature becomes real to you because it is quickened in your spirit. This is revelation. It is not simply received by your mind but you know that your spirit received it. But more than His nature becoming real to you, when you are in the presence of God, the aspect of God that was revealed to you is also imparted to you. Your spirit accepts the reality of that aspect of God’s nature, you receive an impartation of it, and you become more like Him.
Apart from receiving God’s nature, it is also in His presence that we are cleansed. The prophet Isaiah had his tongue changed before the throne of God.
In His presence also is the fullness of joy.
Have you ever had this kind of encounter with God? It is one thing to be filled with God’s presence in a corporate setting but it truly is another thing to have your fill in your personal time with God where it is just you and Him.
It must be said though that higher levels of intimacy with God cannot be attained by being casual before Him and it certainly does not happen overnight. There are no shortcuts to intimacy. It takes investment. It takes making Him priority everyday. It takes giving up certain things that do not build our spirit. It takes sometimes even saying no to things that seem harmless yet are being required by God of you.
When the Apostle Paul ministered to the Corinthian Church he came to them not with excellence of speech or human wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and power of God. He explained where that came from. It came from a determination to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. To know here means to have seen. Knowing Jesus alone was enough for him.
2. Listen to the Word not with your ear but with your heart.
Seek after the right things. We need to dig in to the Word. If we will dig into the Word, seek after the things that truly matter. We need to major on the major. If we are going to fill ourselves with knowledge, we need to make sure we are filling up ourselves with the knowledge that matters. Do not be consumed by trivial things. The Apostle Paul says in Romans not to enter into disputes over doubtful things. If there is anything we should look for in the Scripture as we read it, it is Christ. What does the verse we are reading speak about our God? What is God speaking to me through this passage?
We need to be seeking for answers to the right questions. Right questions come from right motivations. Why are we studying the Scripture? You get to focus on the things that count when your heart’s cry is to know God and His will and to follow Him. But if one’s interest is simply to accrue knowledge or to outdo others, they will not be able to truly discover the gems of the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus Himself said that pearls are not given to swines. He will not give His precious revelations to those who do not seek Him with the right heart.
Listen with your heart and not just with your ears. When we simply listen with our ears, we can easily dismiss God’s voice. Instances when this can happen are:
On the other hand, when you listen with your heart, you can be listening to something you have heard a hundred times, or something an enemy has said, or something you do not like to hear, and yet it speaks something fresh to you, something relevant.
© CreationSwap/Cody Davenport 2012
Since having this dream, I have contemplated on its message and have taken this as a sober warning on how we ought to progress as a body of believers.
The plant in the dream can represent believers. The fertilizer, on the other hand, can speak of knowledge of the truth. That the plants grew instantly through the fertilizer spoke to me of how knowledge of the truth can project a form of growth. Mentally knowing the truths of the Scripture, especially deep revelations, can really project spirituality. When one speaks in Christian jargon, it is easy to be taken as deep in one’s walk. However, in the dream, the plant that relied on boosters to grow quickly shriveled up and the shriveling revealed its true state. The thought I believe this is conveying is that knowledge of the Word is not enough. In the last days 2 Timothy warns us against perilous men:
2 Timothy 3:1-4FORM IS NOT EQUAL TO POWER
But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
The men described in this passage had a form of godliness. Yet, we are warned that they shall also be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. It is a warning to us that we can actually learn how to look spiritual and yet not live the life. While we may not practice such sins in grave ways, how many cannot relate to at least one of those mentioned?
These men who were described here are not simply believers. They are those who have been learning.
2 Timothy 3:7Thus, it is possible to accumulate head knowledge and for that knowledge to never get absorbed by the rest of our parts. We cannot rely on boosters alone (head knowledge) to truly grow and be established. We have seen that in the life of Solomon. He is the wisest man ever and yet he did not live the life. We can share knowledge to others and even win arguments on religion or counsel others and yet not have character. Solomon had wisdom but not the character of wisdom.
Always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
This is not to say that we do not need knowledge. But what I seek to emphasize here is that knowledge alone will not be enough. It will not support real and lasting Christian growth. Yes, we certainly need knowledge of God’s Word. It is indispensable in Christian maturity. However, the question that we must ask today is how can knowledge truly become profitable to us. How can we gain not only head knowledge but the very character of knowledge?
From the dream I shared, it was clear to me that we cannot rely on shortcuts. Growth boosters can speed up the development of form but not of power. If something has form but no substance, it is hollow. We certainly do not want to be hollow Christians. We must allow the processes of God to establish us.
HOW THEN CAN WE HAVE NOT JUST FORM BUT POWER?
1. Seek intimacy with Christ
Why should we hunger for communing with God?
It is in the presence of God that we become more like Him. When we see Him as He is we shall become like Him. It is in intimate times with God where we receive breakthroughs in our hearts. It is in those quiet times with God, where God visits and an aspect of His nature becomes real to you because it is quickened in your spirit. This is revelation. It is not simply received by your mind but you know that your spirit received it. But more than His nature becoming real to you, when you are in the presence of God, the aspect of God that was revealed to you is also imparted to you. Your spirit accepts the reality of that aspect of God’s nature, you receive an impartation of it, and you become more like Him.
Apart from receiving God’s nature, it is also in His presence that we are cleansed. The prophet Isaiah had his tongue changed before the throne of God.
Isaiah 6:5-7Isaiah saw his wickedness when he stood before the holy God. He was already a prophet then yet, before God, he declared that he was a man of unclean lips. The very thing God was using in his life, he found unclean before the God who is also the Truth and perfectly pure. The fact that he was already prophesying may have been seen as an indication that he had clean lips. Yet, not before God. Truly our righteousness are but filthy rags before Him. And this is why we need to enter His presence that the scales from our eyes would be removed and that in His presence we may be cleansed. Isaiah had the coals from the altar purge his tongue. How we need to come before the altar of God as well that His coals may purge us. In His presence we receive breakthroughs from struggles and sin. Our God is a consuming fire. So when we are in His presence, His fire reveals our true state and cleanses and renews us.
So I said:
“Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The Lord of hosts.”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said:
“Behold, this has touched your lips;
Your iniquity is taken away,
And your sin purged.”
In His presence also is the fullness of joy.
Psalm 16:11When we enter into the very presence of God we experience not just joy but its fullness. The truth that He alone satisfies becomes real. When we become more intimate with God, we truly grow deeper in our love for Him as a bride loves and yearns for her bridegroom. You stop counting the minutes or the hours you are spending with Him. Everything else just feels trivial. Everything fades away.
You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Have you ever had this kind of encounter with God? It is one thing to be filled with God’s presence in a corporate setting but it truly is another thing to have your fill in your personal time with God where it is just you and Him.
It must be said though that higher levels of intimacy with God cannot be attained by being casual before Him and it certainly does not happen overnight. There are no shortcuts to intimacy. It takes investment. It takes making Him priority everyday. It takes giving up certain things that do not build our spirit. It takes sometimes even saying no to things that seem harmless yet are being required by God of you.
When the Apostle Paul ministered to the Corinthian Church he came to them not with excellence of speech or human wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and power of God. He explained where that came from. It came from a determination to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. To know here means to have seen. Knowing Jesus alone was enough for him.
1 Corinthians 2:1-5I know that to most, if not all of us, we are already pursuing righteousness and holiness. However, love for righteousness is not necessarily a love for God. We have to run after God. We need to long for intimacy. How much do we long for Him? How much do we long to commune with Him?
And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know (to have seen) anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
2. Listen to the Word not with your ear but with your heart.
Seek after the right things. We need to dig in to the Word. If we will dig into the Word, seek after the things that truly matter. We need to major on the major. If we are going to fill ourselves with knowledge, we need to make sure we are filling up ourselves with the knowledge that matters. Do not be consumed by trivial things. The Apostle Paul says in Romans not to enter into disputes over doubtful things. If there is anything we should look for in the Scripture as we read it, it is Christ. What does the verse we are reading speak about our God? What is God speaking to me through this passage?
We need to be seeking for answers to the right questions. Right questions come from right motivations. Why are we studying the Scripture? You get to focus on the things that count when your heart’s cry is to know God and His will and to follow Him. But if one’s interest is simply to accrue knowledge or to outdo others, they will not be able to truly discover the gems of the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus Himself said that pearls are not given to swines. He will not give His precious revelations to those who do not seek Him with the right heart.
Listen with your heart and not just with your ears. When we simply listen with our ears, we can easily dismiss God’s voice. Instances when this can happen are:
- when the word or message God is speaking to you is not new, meaning you have already heard it before;
- when the messenger God is speaking through is an unlikely source, perhaps, somebody you do not look up to or even an enemy; or
- when the message is not something you want to hear.
On the other hand, when you listen with your heart, you can be listening to something you have heard a hundred times, or something an enemy has said, or something you do not like to hear, and yet it speaks something fresh to you, something relevant.
What does it take to make our hearts listen? It takes humility, an honest-to-goodness acceptance that I have something to learn from this message regardless of who is saying it or what is being said. A humble person esteems others as better than himself. Thus, he takes the posture of a learner.
To hear from your heart also requires desiring to be in the center of God’s will. If we really are intent on hearing God, it is impossible to avoid a messenger or a message that is not pleasing to our flesh or soul. God’s Word after all is a sword. We will therefore at many points have our flesh and soul come at odds with God. Yet, if we listen, we will profit much.
Are there portions of Scripture we avoid and dismiss to have nothing for us? Are there words in the Scripture that terrify us so we hardly read them too? We need to remember that it is “all Scripture” that has been given to us by inspiration of God for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction. It is ALL, not some.
Knowledge only becomes profitable when we live it out. It is a given that those who seek to live by the truth will have to pay the price. We will be called to buy the truth. Only when we have bought the truth will it become living word in us. How much of the Word is alive in us today? Are we willing to pay the price for the power of God in our lives?
True growth in plants come by exposing them to the elements. It cannot survive on mere fertilizers. It needs water, heat of the sun, and air, among others. If the word has not been tested in us, it has yet to really take root in us. It is mere lip service. We have to welcome the elements. We must not shun away from difficulties. Adversities can be our friends. According to 2 Timothy 3, those who desire to be godly not just in form but in substance will suffer persecution.
We cannot simply know truth. There also must be an application of it in our daily lives. Knowledge puffs up but love edifies. Those who truly know are not arrogant. They build up those who know less. Those who truly have knowledge that profits love God. As we are told that such have the privilege of being known by God. This is what we want to be. People who do not just know a lot about God but who are known by Him.
To hear from your heart also requires desiring to be in the center of God’s will. If we really are intent on hearing God, it is impossible to avoid a messenger or a message that is not pleasing to our flesh or soul. God’s Word after all is a sword. We will therefore at many points have our flesh and soul come at odds with God. Yet, if we listen, we will profit much.
Are there portions of Scripture we avoid and dismiss to have nothing for us? Are there words in the Scripture that terrify us so we hardly read them too? We need to remember that it is “all Scripture” that has been given to us by inspiration of God for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction. It is ALL, not some.
2 Timothy 3:16-173. Buy the truth by paying the price.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Knowledge only becomes profitable when we live it out. It is a given that those who seek to live by the truth will have to pay the price. We will be called to buy the truth. Only when we have bought the truth will it become living word in us. How much of the Word is alive in us today? Are we willing to pay the price for the power of God in our lives?
True growth in plants come by exposing them to the elements. It cannot survive on mere fertilizers. It needs water, heat of the sun, and air, among others. If the word has not been tested in us, it has yet to really take root in us. It is mere lip service. We have to welcome the elements. We must not shun away from difficulties. Adversities can be our friends. According to 2 Timothy 3, those who desire to be godly not just in form but in substance will suffer persecution.
2 Timothy 3:12Romans 8 says, that for Christ sake, His followers suffer.
Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
Romans 8:35-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.Romans 5 says tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance, character. Character is substance. And character qualifies us to be entrusted with power. You cannot speak of faithfulness to others if you yourself have not been faithful. You cannot speak of purity to others if you yourself are not pure. You cannot speak of being a finisher if you yourself have not seen something through to the end. What is the message God wants you to buy today?
We cannot simply know truth. There also must be an application of it in our daily lives. Knowledge puffs up but love edifies. Those who truly know are not arrogant. They build up those who know less. Those who truly have knowledge that profits love God. As we are told that such have the privilege of being known by God. This is what we want to be. People who do not just know a lot about God but who are known by Him.
1 Corinthians 8:1-3
Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him.
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