Know Yourself

Romans 12:3

We live in an Information world! Through internet, media, social media, Wikipedia, and my favorite, gossippedia (I made this one up) we seem to know more about other things and other people than ourselves. In fact, if the truth be known, we want to know more about other things and people than ourselves, because if we took a good look at ourselves we might not like what we find out.

I was reading a sermon by the great Puritan Thomas Brooks. In the sermon he warns of how Satan can so subtlety deceived us into focusing on so much outside of us, overlooking what is within us, eventually causing us to fall into his trap. So Brooks encourages the believer to have a thorough knowledge of oneself first, then to seek the knowledge of other things. So how do we acquire this knowledge. It is done through three searchings.

First, we must have a thorough knowledge of Jesus Christ. The only way that we can begin to know about Him is to come to know Him first. A person can have a theological or academic knowledge of Christ and be lost, never coming to the true knowledge of the truth. Gods will is for us to know Christ personally by receiving Him by faith in His atoning work on the cross and His resurrection. Through the Holy Spirit and prayer we can hear His voice and we can began to learn of Him because we have come to Him and found rest. (Matthew 11:28-30)

Secondly, we gain this knowledge from reading the Bible. The Bible is the word of God and it does two things. First, it should point us to the true word which is Jesus Christ. It is meant to conform us to Christ (Romans 8:29) and to be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. (Psalms 119:105)  It is meant to make us wise unto salvation and thoroughly perfect unto every good work. (2 Timothy 3:15,16) Secondly, it is to teach us about ourselves. It is a mirror to show us our true nature as lost human beings and is to lead us to the savior of our souls which is Jesus Christ. By studying the scriptures, we learn about Jesus and we learn about ourselves, and we come to the conclusion that we fall short of Gods glory and we need a savior!

Lastly, once we have a knowledge of Christ and the Bible then we have a thorough knowledge of own hearts. The Bible locates us. It is a book of truth and it reveals to us our true selves. (Hebrews 4:12) We can so easily deceive others. We are good at it! And the reason why we are good at it is because we are good at deceiving our on selves! Paul warned Timothy that there would be evil men and seducers who would go about deceiving and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:13) My biggest fear as a believer is to stand before the judgement seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10) and finding out something about myself that I didn’t know or failed to acknowledged.

That’s why the Psalmist gave us one of the most precious prayers in the Bible. Let these words soak in as you read them

“Search me, O God, and know my heart: Try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23-24

God loves our honesty! One of the most precious attributes of the believer is meekness and humility before God. That is the doorway to a life filled with grace. So let us seek to know the Lord and ourselves better! And let us make this prayer of David apart of our daily prayer life.

“Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have dominion over me: Then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.”

Psalm 19:12-14

Pastor Robby