The famous writer A. W. Tozer has written a book in which he says that the most important thing about you is what you know about God, your knowledge of God. I want to give you several reasons why this is true.
Ideas have consequences and the ideas you have about God have the most consequences.
- By the way.
- Do ideas have consequences? is the title of a famous book about Adolf Hitler’s ideas and their consequences.
- These ideas and their consequences have led to the murder of thousands of people.
- Karl Marx had an idea and his ideas also led to the mass murder of millions of people.
- I had an idea called abortion and it’s a shame to say that in the United States.
- 50 million children were killed in the 1970s.
- I don’t think I have to convince them that ideas have consequences.
- And if God is the best idea for anyone can have.
- Then God is the idea that will have more consequences than any other idea you can have.
- So what you think of God is the most important thing you can think of yourself.
2. No can be like God if we don’t know what God is like
The Bible tells us that we must be as Dios. De done, this is the sub-item of this conference: “Be holy, for I am the Lord, your God?”(Leviticus 20:7), Jesus is perfect, as His Heavenly Father is perfect and we must be (Matthew 5:48). We must be like God and if we don’t know what it’s like, it won’t be possible.
3. No we can know the true God if we do not know the truth about God.
Jesus said, will you know the truth and the truth will set you free?And that we must worship in spirit and truth, but you cannot worship the true God if you do not know the truth about God. In fact, when Jesus said that we must truly worship, He said that if we do not tell the truth about God, we do not really worship Him. We cannot honor and worship God by saying false things about Him. If you say false things about your mother, you don’t honor your mother, the same with God.
4. No can recognize the false gods unless we know the true God
You don’t know anything fake unless you know the true and the original. In fact, some experts in the field of counterfeiting told me that they did not spend time studying fake things, but real money bills. which is real, because if they are not experts in the real, they will not recognize the false. People say, “I believe in God” and I ask, “What God do you believe in?” because not all gods are true. And we will not know the true God if we do not recognize the truth about him and recognize the false gods if we do not recognize the God of scripture.
All false gods are idols and can be both metal and spirit.
Most people can recognize a metallic god, but sometimes we cannot recognize a false mental god. The Bible says that we should not have another God before Him.
6. We tend to become what we love
When I was in high school, I played basketball, baseball and running, and that’s what I needed a model for. You need someone you can use to shape your life based on this model. And if you look at people, you’ll find that they tend to imitate the artists and stars they’d like to be; that is, they tend to become like your model. Now God is the tallest model in the universe, so we must model our lives according to Him. It’s a psychological fact, we tend to look like our models. life in God, we will be educated in His image.
7. No can really get to know each other if we don’t really know God
Socrates said, “Know yourself,” Christianity says, “know God. So if, in fact, you want to know yourself, you don’t have to go to a psychologist because he’ll point you in the wrong direction. “look at themselves and in the past. But the only way to get to know each other is to look up. Why would you do that: Why is the best way to understand a copy to study the original?We’ve all looked at the illegible copies, what do we do? We take the original and try to find the answer. We are copies of God, created in his image and likeness. If you want to know who you are, look at the original. If you want to know who you are, look at the One who created you in His image.
8. Si we don’t live by what’s up there, what’s underneath is going to suck what we’re down there.
Is that why Paul said, Think of the things above?(Colossians 3:2), and said in Philippians 3 that he runs toward the goal, which is Christ (Philippians 3:14). I have 6 children and as they got older we wanted them to have a good role model in their lives, we wanted them to aim high, so every time they sat down at the table to eat, there was a picture of a girl with an apple on her head on our wall with an arrow on the girl’s forehead and there was a phrase “to succeed , aim higher. “Most of us don’t aim high in life. We look at someone else and say “I want to be like her”, but they are fallen and sinful people like us and at some point they will disappoint you, like everything else in this world. There’s only one person who will never let you down and that’s God!If you want to be like him, look to God; if you don’t want what’s underneath to attract you, look what’s upstairs.
When I became a Christian 62 years ago, I learned my first lesson: “that Christian life is not difficult, but it is impossible to live by one’s own strength”. If I cannot live by my own strength, I can live by Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13).
9. A commitment less than a final commitment will not fully satisfy you
Paul Tillich, a liberal theologian, said a real commitment is a final commitment, but this latest commitment must be a commitment to the truly final.
My favorite book from the Old Testament is Ecclesiastes. In the first chapter, Solomon tells us that he tried everything under heaven to be satisfied. He tasted women, wine, evil, work, wealth. I had everything I could have, but I had no reason to live. The only people who believe that wealth can bring happiness are the poor, because those who have it know that wealth does not bring satisfaction. The point is this: the inner desire we have for infinity will never be satisfied by the finite. The desire for the eternal will never be satisfied by the temporal. This space in the human heart that is the size of God can only be filled by God. There are fundamental ways in which men have sought satisfaction and one of them is materialism. He says happiness is in money and things, but no one is happy to add possessions. Jesus said that man’s life is not his possessions, and Paul said that love of money is the root of all evils. So happiness is not in money.
Others seek happiness in Eastern religions. Young people see their parents, rich but unhappy, and with this they begin to turn to Buddha in search of happiness, who preached to them that giving up their riches and pleasures will make them happy, in a nirvana. The fact is that changing your desires will not make them satisfy you A stone has no desires, but it is not happy either.
How can anyone be happy then? It is to redirect your passions to the One God who can satisfy you, because only infinity can satisfy an infinite desire. Let the eternal God satisfy your desires for eternity. Nothing less than the maximum can satisfy your desires. I discovered this as a teenager. I grew up in a non-Christian family and never went to church. My favorite uncle was an atheist. But I wasn’t happy. I was looking for God, A church had a bus that took the kids to Sunday school and I went. I heard of Jesus, who said, “Did I come to have complete joy and joy?”(John 17:13). My heart cried with happiness, and that emptiness in my heart was filled by God, I gave my life to Jesus Christ, and now, for more than 62 years, I have served Him, I can tell you with certainty that only Jesus satisfies. He’ll just fulfill your last wish.
Let me enlighten you by telling you how he did it for me: at 17 I gave my life to Christ and it was a complete transformation; before I became a Christian, I came from a family without culture; I didn’t have books, my father only studied until the fourth year, my mother only until seventh grade, I finished high school without reading a book, I was expelled from my art room because the teacher asked me how the story ended and I didn’t know, but God was working in my life. God sent me all over the world, reading a book, talking about Jesus. Brazil is the 31st country I visit and although I haven’t read any books in high school, I wrote 80 books today.
God is great and God is good, and if you give him your life, he will fill your life with abundant satisfaction and joy; He’ll take it, equip it and use it. Can you say you’re poor? We were so poor we ate our pet rabbit, Nancy. You can eat a rabbit, but not your pet (laughs). God can take you anywhere to satisfy your heart. Remember Moses? He told God he was not eloquent and asked someone to go in his place. God sent Moses to throw the stick to the ground and he came to life. God told him to remove it and it became a stick. God made his hand, have leprosy and stop having it, with a hand movement. God told him to hit the waters with his rod, and the waters were divided. Moses gave God what he had, and God gave Moses what he did not have.
Are we all here in search of holiness? We also seek happiness. This happiness is only found in God, and the world has not yet seen what will happen to a person who is completely satisfied and dedicated to God. The verse of my life is Philippians 1:21: “For me, living is Christ, and dying is won. “If you let me live, I will live for him; If they kill me, I’ll live with him, you can’t overcome that philosophy.
A thug pointed a gun at a Christian and threatened to kill him if he did not give his money. He said, “You can’t threaten me from heaven. ” The worst that can happen to you is the best that can happen to you, because living is Christ and dying is a gain.