"More By Midnight"

"More By Midnight"

     

   

    Many years ago, I discussed a particular matter about which I know very little with a person who might be considered an expert in the field we considered together.  I suppose I sounded as if I thought myself knowledgeable about the issue despite my lack of direct information and experience.  The person with whom I spoke responded graciously, but with much candor.  "I don't mean to be respectful", he said, "but you really don't know very much about what you're talking about."

   I cherish that moment.  The person who made the comment meant well, and fulfilled his intention.  I didn't know very much about the matter we addressed.  More importantly, I needed to be reminded of my ignorance.

    "If any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know" (I Corinthians 8:2).

   In spiritual matters, we must maintain the attitude of "nothing yet as we ought to know".  We can possess knowledge of God and His truth, of course, and should grow into maturity in our relationship with Him through the Lord Jesus Christ.  However, the Subject remains infinitely vast.  Regardless of  how far we venture into the realm of our Lord and His truth, eternity stretches before us with glories yet to be viewed, wonders yet to be experienced, and truth yet to be understood.  No "experts" exist regarding any aspect of God and His truth.  Some may know more than others, and may be equipped and gifted by the Lord to communicate those glories, wonders, and truth.  However, all genuine Christian communicators believe themselves to have dipped merely a toe into the infinity of God's shoreless ocean.  True knowledge of the Lord Jesus and His truth humbles rather than exalts.  His light illuminates with increasing knowledge, including the realization that regardless of how much we know, God's truth reminds us - "nothing yet as we ought to know".

   Such truth should thrill us, even as it keeps us in the proper frame of mind.  Again, God's infinite nature, being, and way comprise the primary reason that we require growth in knowledge and experience.  We will never reach a final destination of our journey into the glory of the Lord Jesus.  This day includes a leg of that eternal adventure.  We can know more by midnight than we did at dawn.  None of us will achieve expert status, but we can in this day "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (II Peter 3:18).  I think about this often when remembering that somebody once cared enough to inform me that I possessed far less knowledge about a subject than I realized.  In a far more important matter, the truth is even more vital and necessary to be kept near in heart and mind.  No less than the Apostle Paul realized the glory of the Infinite and his continual need for progress in the eternal process...

"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

(Philippians 3:13-14)

Weekly Memory Verse

    The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

(Proverbs 9:10)