Who Is God?

Colossians 1:10 teaches us on how to be proper Christians: ‘—that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.’
I underlined that last section because it is something sorely missing in church today (generally speaking—I understand there may be proper churches out there, somewhere). It seems obvious that to understand how to be proper followers of Christ we should learn of Him, and yet teachings on the nature and person of God do not seem to be a priority for our teachers these days. Perhaps one of the causes of this travesty is the blasphemous New Thought ideology expounded (most notably) by Osteen. Osteen is quoted as saying: ‘I have found that people are not interested in theology . . . they just need to know how to live’! Theology being the study of God, this declaration is clearly contradictory to the verse in Colossians. IT IS UNBIBLICAL. Osteen and most other preachers today are attempting to sever learning about God with learning how to live, or to put it another way, they deny the relevance of learning about Christ for the modern person. From his own lips this false teacher says he is not interesting in teaching about God.

If we are not increasing our knowledge of God, we are not fulfilling our duties and obligations to our Creator. We are failing as believers.While incompetent or false teachers are partially to blame for this failure, we are without excuse, for what can be known of God is evident among us (Romans 1:19-20). If your preacher does not increase your knowledge of God, then you should be taking it on yourself. Don’t turn to other works to understand who God is; every book ever written about God is diluted through its author’s opinions and biases. Turn rather to God’s Word and to God in prayer, thereby will you increase your knowledge of Him. Don’t count on your teachers, pastors, or friends to educate you in Theology 101. And don’t lean on your own understanding, but acknowledge Him in all your ways, and He will direct your path (Proverbs 3:5-6).

 Ezekiel Chapter 34 speaks out against these false shepherds; ‘Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks?’

If your pastor is not teaching you about the nature and person of Christ, then he is not feeding you as he should be. If he stands up on the pulpit and holds in his hands any book other than the Bible, and teaches out of this substitution, then he is not feeding you, he is failing you, and you owe it to yourself and to God not to subject yourself to his wayward messages.

Going back to Colossians, this time chapter 2 verse 8, we are given a heads up on the techniques of these false shepherds: Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of this world, and not according to Christ.’ Wow, notice how timeless and relevant this nearly 2,000 year old message is today.

Osteen and his ilk would have us learn how to live without knowledge of Christ and yet the Bible makes clear that such teachings are empty deceits, based on worldly principles, and that they cheat us of our heavenly birthright.

So let us turn to Jonah chapter 4, to increase our knowledge of God. The fourth chapter reveals a very tender loving side to our God, which is truly revelatory when considering all the wrath and destruction this same God brings in so many other places in the OT. God tells Jonah ‘You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which are 120,000 persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?’

Here we see that God did not want to destroy the people of Nineveh, though their sin was great. He had pity on them, much in the way Jonah pitied the plant, though God’s pity is justified because He has labored over the people of Nineveh, He created them and fed them and raised them up. He cared for them, because though they did not care for God, they were still God’s creations. What love is this we see! And then, as if that wasn’t sufficiently moving, God even points out that He wanted to save even the animals of the city! Here we learn that God will go out of His way to save even those who turn their backs on Him. This is knowledge well worth discovering, something I much prefer to learn about than how enjoyable my pastor’s latest cruise to the Bahamas was.

Spend time in God’s Word and with God in prayer, for that is time well spent.