Jesus saw that they wanted to ask Him about this, so He said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see Me no more, and then after a little while you will see Me?’�? John 16:19

December 21, 2007 Floyd Ray Gage

What a loving and caring God we serve. What a wonderful Savior we follow. Our Lord has a heart that seeks after those that don’t know they are even lost. He has a will that encompasses those that don’t even realize He is operating in their lives. He chooses us when we don’t even know there is a choice to make. The Lord comes and asks us questions we haven’t even known to ask yet.

The Lord is omniscient. That is a five dollar theological term that means He knows everything. God knows things about us that we haven’t even discovered about ourselves. He knows our doubts and fears. He knows our potential and our dreams. This is powerful and potent knowledge.

Jesus knew the disciples had questions and He knew what those questions were. He had a choice to make about that knowledge. He could be upset with them because of their questions and the doubt behind those questions, or He could approach them in love and answer those questions.

Jesus, of course, chose the latter approach. Our Lord always chooses to use His knowledge to love us and try to redeem us. We don’t always listen and our pride gets in the way, but the Lord never uses His knowledge about us to be vindictive and hateful with us.

How different man can be from God. When we have secret knowledge about someone else, we have the same choice that our Lord has. We can use that knowledge to help the person or we can use it to try and get some advantage over them and hurt them. I think we would all have to admit that there have been times that we have taken the hurtful and self-indulging path.

We hold secret contempt in our hearts, because of knowledge we have for others that they may not even know we have. We may smile on the outside and yet despise them on the inside. Many times we are like the tabloid writers and paparazzi. We are just looking for someone to slip up and us to find out. We enjoy it when others fall. We use it to bolster our own egos. This is not the Christ-like way.

This does not mean that if we know of a sin in someone’s life that we don’t confront them about it, but we must be aware of our motives in this confrontation. Are we truly seeking the good of the other person or are we enjoying having something on them that we can use as leverage?

If God wanted to, He could destroy everyone of us. He could have turned His back on us because of the knowledge that He has about us, but the Scriptures tell us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. This shows us that God uses His knowledge of us to try and help us. God sees our need for salvation and provides the way.

When we see a need in someone else’s life, do we react with condemnation and contempt, or are we like our Lord Jesus and react with compassion and love? Are we seeking to help others when they are confused and have fallen or do we kick them while they are down?

Knowledge is a very prized commodity in our society. The thing we must realize is that having a lot of knowledge does not make one wise. Wisdom comes from the proper application of knowledge. The wisest thing to do with our knowledge is to submit it to God and allow Him to use it to make us more like Christ in our compassion and love