Musing – Are we to Know Him or to Serve Him?

Hebraic Musing – Are we to Know Him or to Serve Him?
Or -- The unintended consequences of placing learning about God above living for God.

Years ago, my beloved pastor drilled into us
            “To Know Him is to Love Him; and to Love Him is to Serve Him.
             If you are not Serving Him it is because you do not Love Him;
            and if you do not Love Him, it is because you do not Know Him.” 

Have you known folks who claim to know Jesus, are doing some study and sort of know the Bible yet they are not serving Him? Are those folks are storing up God’s wrath against themselves by not applying their godly knowledge to their daily walk, or ‘Halakhah’ (one’s way of walking)?  

They should know better! And there are many biblical references to support this concern:

·      Rom. 1:18-20 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them … so that men are without excuse.   If God has made it plain, what excuse do we have?

·      Isa. 59:2  But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.  He will not hear or even listen to us, no matter how much we know, why?

·      Eph. 4:17-18  So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.   Two points – 
        (1) Don’t live like you used to. 
        (2) And don’t conform to the world view around us.  Be separated!

·      Rom. 1:17   …just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”   Note that it does not say “the knowledgeable will live by faith.” How many knowledgeable folks do you know who need to heed Habakkuk 2:4  See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright -- but the righteous will live by his faith.

My all-time favorite is James 1:22.   Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.   Then verses 23-27 continues to emphasize the need to apply God’s Word in actions  23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror  and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it — he will be blessed in what he does. (Do you know anyone who claims to be ‘religious’?  How does it show?)  v.26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.     Did you recognize all the ‘action verbs’?

Something to ponder and memorize

            To Know Him is to Love Him; and to Love Him is to Serve Him. 
          If you are not Serving Him it is because you do not Love Him;
                   and if you do not Love Him, it is because you do not Know Him.

Go forth to Know, Love and Serve Yeshua HaMashiach my ‘Chaveri’ (Friends)

Yosef   a.k.a.  Joe Brusherd                                                             November 26, 2013

Author of two books “Hebraic Insights” and  “Biblical Marriage”

And weekly e-mails “Hebraic Musings”  Yosef1@cox.net  or  www.InsightsByYosef.com