Do You Know Who You Worship?

I was preparing for worship recently and was pondering on the song “How great is our God”. My heart was a bit heavy because I was dealing with a situation and as I pondered on the greatness of God, the Holy Spirit spoke into my heart and said “Do you really know the greatness of the God you worship or do you just sing about it. The story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well dropped into my spirit and God began to speak to me, what I’m about to share with you.

It reads in John 4:22 that “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; We worship what we do know; for salvation is from the Jew”.

The Jews claimed to know God because they had encountered Him and His power in various ways since their miraculous deliverance from Egypt. They experienced God’s deliverance, experienced the cloud of glory that protected them as they ran from the Egyptian army, and the cloud that rested on their tent as they journeyed through the wilderness. They experienced God’s miraculous provision of food, water from the rock, and saw Gods powerful judgement when they sinned. They saw their shoes grow with their feet, and through all the stressful conditions they were subjected to, none was feeble amongst them.
They could claim that they knew God for themselves because they saw His mighty acts over an over again.

God then told me that the only way one can claim to know another is through a relationship of some kind. The only way that we can claim to know God is through our personal relationship and experiences with Him.

God said He allows situations and circumstances in our lives so that we can experience Him personally. That is how we can claim that we know God. The opportunities given to us by virtue of the challenges we face are the channel by which we get to have an experiential knowledge of God.

What I’m saying is that I cannot say I know God as the Healer if I have not been healed of some kind of illness. I cannot boldly declare as truth that He is my Provider if I have not suffered lack. I cannot claim he is my Deliverer if I have not experienced His deliverance, neither can I claim He is my Help if I have never been overwhelmed and in need of help.

This tells me that we need to change our perception of the things we go through. We need to embrace those situations in our lives that seems like are from hell because through them God is going to reveal different aspects of Himself and His power in our lives.

James 1:2 says “Count it all joy when you face trials of many kinds knowing that the testing of your faith develops perseverance”.

This has not been one of my favourites scriptures and I'm sure most of you would agree with me, but I now understand what God is saying. His intension is to work out maturity in you. His intension is to ensure your faith is strong and entire, lacking nothing. You can count it all joy because God is using the situation as an opportunity to reveal Himself to you.

This experiential knowledge of God is very vital if we are going to be able to say that we know God. Then, when we worship through our songs we are not just singing about the former days of Gods power, we can worship in spirit and in truth because He is as real to us now as in the days of old. That experience you have of God would bring new revelation to the songs you sing.

I enjoy reading about God’s great acts in the bible because they are an assurance that He can do mightier things for me now, if I believe. However, it is time to seek a first hand experiential knowledge of God .

I want to encourage you to persevere, trust, and see God revealed in your life through your situations. I long to hear others declare "The God of Toro". The God of.........(put your name).

Shalom!