“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.”
Psalm 136:1
The knowledge of God is reason to celebrate Thanksgiving!
Today I’m thanking God for knowledge – His knowledge.
The knowledge of God is mind-boggling, for the simple reason that God knows everything. Let the weight of this glorious attribute rest on your soul today.
A.W. Tozer has this to say about God’s knowledge, which he calls “the divine omniscience.”
“To say that God is omniscient is to say that He possesses perfect knowledge and therefore has no need to learn. But it is more: it is to say that God has never learned and cannot learn. The Scriptures teach that God has never learned from anyone.”
Wow! What an incredible thought: God knows everything and He has always known everything. There was never a moment when God did not know everything.
And this means that God has never been a student. He has never been taught or mentored or instructed. He has never been to a counseling session. He has never said, “I’m not sure what to do or how to do it.”
Isn’t this why Isaiah asks a series of rhetorical questions in Isaiah 40:13-14?
“Who has understood the Spirit of the LORD,
Or instructed him as his counselor?
Whom did the LORD consult to enlighten him,
And who taught him the right way?
Who was it that taught him knowledge
Or showed him the path of understanding?”
The answer to each of these questions, of course, is “no one.”
Tozer says this about Isaiah’s words:
“Could God at any time or in any manner receive into His mind knowledge that He did not possess and had not possessed from eternity, He would be imperfect and less than himself. To think of a God who must sit at the feet of a teacher, even though that teacher be an archangel or a seraph, is to think of someone other than the Most High God, maker of heaven and earth.”
Now that we’ve seen what Scripture says about the perfect knowledge of God, what effect does it have on you?
Keep in mind that because God knows everything, that means He knows everything about you. This is why theology (the study of God) is the most practical of all subjects. When done properly, reflecting on the character of God moves us from the esoteric to the personal.
God’s omniscience will cause either of two responses. It will terrify you, or it will thrill you. Again we go to Tozer for insight.
RESPONSE #1
“That God knows each person through and through can be a cause of shaking fear to the man who has something to hide – some unforsaken sin, some secret crime committed against man or God.”
The person who has yet to receive God’s forgiveness of sin will tremble at the perfect knowledge of God, and well he should. Until your sins have been nailed to the cross of Christ, God’s knowledge of your iniquity is Exhibit A in the courtroom of heaven, and the divine wrath hangs justly over your head, for “whoever does not believe (in Jesus) stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:18).
Yes, “whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3:36)
RESPONSE #2
“And to us who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us in the gospel, how unutterably sweet is the knowledge that our Heavenly Father knows us completely.
No talebearer can inform on us, no enemy can make an accusation stick; no forgotten skeleton can come tumbling out of some hidden closet to abash us and expose our past; no unsuspected weakness in our characters can come to light to turn God away from us, since He knew us utterly before we knew Him and called us to Himself in the full knowledge of everything that was against us.”
For the forgiven sinner, God’s knowledge becomes precious beyond words. He knows me perfectly, yet because of the work of Christ, he loves me perfectly and has taken all my sins and cast them “into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19).
The divine omniscience is the source of indescribable terror or unspeakable joy.
Which is it for you today?
NOTE: For the other posts in this Thanksgiving acrostic, visit Click Here.
To date, there are 6 posts in this series, one for each letter of the word T-H-A-N-K-S.
ALSO NOTE: The quotes by A.W. Tozer in this post are from his book The Knowledge of the Holy.
- 8 Great Bible Verses about the Goodness of God - April 23, 2024
- What the Bible Says about the Hands of Jesus (Thoughts on Psalm 24:1-2) - April 18, 2024
- Confessions of a Serial Sinner (Thoughts on Psalm 53:1) - April 10, 2024
Thank you so much for the Word of God. I really enjoyed reading the Thanksgiving Acrostic. May God continually bless you.