Know God

2 Peter 1:2 KJVR
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

How many times have you stepped into this trap of trying to know more about God? You study the meaning of His names. You try to explore the depths of His nature but somehow always get stuck in His love from the New Covenant and His wrath in the Old Testament. Somewhere in the midst of your study you stumble on Isaiah 55 and discover (again) that His thoughts and ways are higher than ours and you just throw in the towel. Then just to rub salt in the wound, as you’re closing your bible you come across this passage from 2 Peter.

Grace and peace can be multiplied to you, but it comes at the means of knowing more about God and Jesus. Is it possible that this is some sick means of getting you to spend endless hours trying to find something illusive in the scripture that only a mystic can comprehend?

Consider this for a moment. What if the “knowledge of God” wasn’t about knowing God but knowing what God has always known about…hold on, here it comes…what God knows about you. Radical, I realize, but it changes a whole lot of your efforts in trying to figure something out about Him to accepting what He has always known to be true about you.

Now this might seem hard for those of you who don’t feel comfortable with your past. However consider that “your” past only goes back to your birth, while His recollection of your past is before the foundation of the world. This is what He knows of you and what the “knowledge of God” is all about in your life. The more that you focus on knowing this part of your life in Him, you will find that grace and peace suddenly is multiplied in your life.

One of the main things that grace achieves in our live is rest. Striving to know more about God is works-based. Accepting what He knows about us brings rest or peace. When we understand what His grace accomplished for us, not only at the cross, but daily, even back before time began, we begin to see the wealth that is our inheritance in Christ.

There is a bumper sticker that reads, “No Jesus, no peace. Know Jesus, know peace.” I might suggest it be changed to read, “Know me, know God. Know grace, know my peace.