Growing in Knowledge

[HKHaugan]

“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen (2Peter 3:18 NIV).”

 

Now we want to look at knowledge and how to grow in the knowledge “of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 

 

Knowledge in our secular evaluation is the accumulation of ideas, concepts, facts and the contextual structure that categorizes them into an orderly system.  It is simply the mental accumulation of experience.  But there is more to knowing than just the mind recording data.  There is emotionality and all that it contains.  There is spirituality and the vast awareness of the invisible dimension.  There is relational knowledge in the interpersonal environment.  How does knowledge find its fulfillment?

 

For us as disciples of Jesus it is knowing Him that gives us a living guide from ignorance to understanding, from lonely conclusion to shared insight and from obstructive pride to humble wisdom.  It is in a relationship with Him that we mature and it is spiritual maturity that enables us to walk the corridors of intelligent investigation and inspired discovery.  Even the true scientist has to admit that it is the humbled mind and heart that opens research to infinite possibilities.  True humility in heart and mind is the gift of God from the One Lord Jesus from whom poured complete humility.  Humility is a spiritual quality and opens the doors of intellect, emotion and spirit. 

 

Military command whose daunting task is the fielding of other human beings yields humbly to historic encounters and an ever-present assemblage of advisors before decisions are finalized.  Not many known successful militarists have operated in the vacuum of pride.  Those that have are recorded in the wasteland of defeat.  

 

Even in the halls of corporate structures it is accumulated experience, research and consultation that drive industry.  Decisions are not arrived at in assurance but in faith, belief and trust that what needs doing will get done and with the right people it can get done.  Invention and discovery are invisibly arrived at by final decisions.  The entire human process is an unfolding of decisions that have produced both positive and negative results but all were made in the invisible laboratory of faith.

 

Need we mention sports and the competitive spirit that motivates teams?  Mind knowledge, the game, its rules, individual skill and practice go only so far.  It is the momentary decisions of individuals working in harmony from moment to moment that determine the outcome. 

 

How much more productive would all these endeavors of talented people have been had they allowed the Lord to guide their inner lives.  Knowledge begins with the source of all knowledge, the One God whose mind is always available.  What was it Jesus promised?  “Seek and ye shall find, ask and it will be given, knock and the door will be opened.”

 

To be available to the vast array of universal knowledge within and without begins with openness to His Spirit.  If we really want to know what it means to be a human being, an image and likeness of God, intended to explore the universe both inner and outer, it demands a wisdom that can only come from the One who created us. 

 

In the above passage, Peter calls us to grow in our knowledge of Him.  Peter sees that the foundation for our knowledge of Jesus is His grace that has allowed us to know Him.  It is God who took the initiative to make Himself known in Jesus.  Grace and knowledge move in lock step.  They converge at the crossroads of our questions, our search and our deepest longings.  They converge as we let Jesus resolve our aloneness, our emptiness, our inner and outer conflicts, our purpose and our destiny. 

 

The place to start is at any cross road where we bring the Cross of Jesus before us.  It can be that locale, that specific junction, where the mind has reached its limits, the emotions have been exhausted and our spirits face the depressing reality where there seem to be no answers; there at that one cross road of our personal history is where we begin.  The Cross of Christ flashes brilliantly in the dark valley of decision where He offers His way, His truth and His life.  Choice and decision is where Jesus tells us to take up our cross each day.  Here is where knowledge truly begins. 

 

The real Cross, the Cross of Calvary, was the summary moment of every moment Jesus decided to act in faith to please His Father.  The Cross summarized how Jesus grew in stature and wisdom with God and man.  The summary statement He made was ‘Not my will but your will be done.’  Jesus’ entire life on this earth summarily was the way, the truth and the life.  Eternity was summarized in Jesus’ faith at the Cross and into death.  His Resurrection was the result of His being faithful through the Cross and death trusting the Father and the Holy Spirit all along the way.

 

Let’s explain this summary.  Core knowledge is ultimately a spiritually inspired accumulation of all we gain as a result of our faith activity.  Jesus demonstrated that by faith the intellect is expanded, by faith wisdom shapes the heart and by faith the spirit finds its stability.  Regardless of our natural endowments, our social skills and our economic condition, it is the core spiritual work He does through the Holy Spirit that recovers and brings us into mature balance.  As we grow in our relationship with the Lord we are freed by the Spirit to expand that part of us He can best use to discover, experiment and grow.  This is when we realize as our part in His plan of world reconciliation.  It is our spiritual stability that brings the rest of who and what we are into the potential He built into us.  Each step in the Spirit following Jesus brings the knowledge that fills our intellect, our emotions and our spirit.   So the more we know about Jesus the more we are introduced to the kind of faith that opens up the broad acreage of the inner and outer universe.  This is the Cross in action.  The vertical beam that brings us the mind of God and the horizontal beam that applies it through the Spirit.  If we shortchange God by lack of faith in Him we are only shortchanging ourselves in the arid desert of vanity where we discover that our thirsting pride is only a lonely and distant mirage.