WHAT IS ESSENTIAL?
Thus said the Lord, “Do not boast of the wise in his wisdom, neither of the strong in his strength, nor of the rich in his wealth, but of him who boasts in this; understand me and know me, because I am the Lord. and I act with loyalty, justice, and righteousness on earth, for are these things the ones I love?, declares the Lord (Jeremiah 9:23, 24).
- We live in a society with so many superfluous things that people constantly wonder what is essential to human existence.
- Some say health.
- Some say health.
- Some say family.
- Some say health.
- This is all wrong.
- The essential thing.
- The main thing.
- The most important thing is to know and understand God.
- There’s nothing up there.
- Nothing next door.
- And we can’t even say there’s anything underneath.
- Because there’s no way to compare God’s knowledge to anything else.
Let me clarify something (mainly because of the degradation of modern self-help preaching): knowing that God is not learning certain principles so that you have ‘the best of your life today’. Isn’t that teaching us an assumption? Apply in our lives and succeed. Knowing God is not a way to achieve our self-centered well-being. It’s the most majestic of all goals. We were created to know God and boast of Him. Eternal life itself consists of theology (theo – God, logic – science, knowledge), as Jesus said in John 17:3:
It is eternal life: make them know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
However, it is not knowledge by knowledge either, it is not a question of boasting of a correct theology, it is not just about seeking the truth, it is seeking the reality of these truths in our lives, a parrot can repeat correct words. A computer can read sermons. Truth must form strong roots that grow and bear fruit for the glory of God. It’s not just about the truth!A. W. Pink masterfully without this in his book The Attributes of God:
“We need more than a theoretical knowledge of God. We only really know God in our souls when we surrender to Him, when we submit to His authority, and when His precepts and commandments govern all the details of our lives.
This transformation of the mentality of the world according to Christ and his will is rooted in the contemplation of Christ. To contemplate is to transform.
But all of us, with our faces uncovered, reflecting the glory of the Lord like a mirror, are transformed from glory to glory in the same image, as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18).
KNOWLEDGE, PRIDE AND HUMILITY
As we re-read Jeremiah’s text, we see that he tells the sage not to take pride in his wisdom, nor of the strength of his strength, nor of the rich of his wealth, but why?If I spoke, wouldn’t the idiot be proud of his wisdom?It would be easy to understand since you don’t have it.
What I think the text means is this: the sage should not be proud, because if his wisdom is human, then it is vanity, because god’s madness is wiser than men?(1 Corinthians 1:25), however, if his wisdom comes from God, then he has nothing to be proud of, after all, he comes from God and not from himself.
Because who makes you different, and you didn’t get it, and if you got it, why do you brag, like you didn’t get it?(1 Corinthians 4: 7)
Why brag about your wisdom? Glory to the one who gives wisdom to the little human spirit. There is nothing you can brag about. Nothing!
What’s more, who, sane, would claim to have counted all the stars of heaven or the sands of the sea, how much more will he boast of saying that they know everything about God?The truth is, the more you know God, the more you know that nothing or very little really knows. This text does not encourage us to boast about our knowledge of God, but about what he has revealed to us about himself.
John answered and said, Man cannot receive anything unless given from heaven (John 3:27).
This is not the kind of man who says, “All eyes are on me and I will speak of this God,” as if I were a mediator; but, yes, the man who says, “Look what this great God has done in history; look what God says about himself?and recognizes that without God it is absolutely nothing, that he has understood what the knowledge of God produces in human beings. “This second type of person shows, displays, and shows only Christ and, according to John the Baptist, declares:
It needs to increase and I need to decrease. (John 3:30)
Therefore, let us keep firm the promise that says:
For the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).
Grow
in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?(2 Peter 3:18)
Et
“Do we know and continue to know the Lord? (Osses 6: 3)
In the world, there is only one thing to look for: the knowledge of God (Robert H. Benson).