“GOK” were initials used in the language of teachers in my past. There is always that “one child” who seems to ace every test, knows the answer to every question, while wondering why the rest of the class does not know the answers, too. At the end of the year, when standardized tests are given, teachers look forward to seeing the evaluation results that might finally indicate what level this child could actually reach. But sometimes, the results were inconclusive. If the child aced even the standardized tests, then the results were translated: GOK— “God Only Knows.”
ONLY GOD knows all that is known. God created us and knows everything about us. God is sovereign. Sovereign simply means “above.” That means God, and only God, is above all while being in all He has formed. He knows the motivations of our hearts, the abilities placed within our beings by Him, along with the number of hairs on our heads! (See Psalm 139, Psalm 100)
God is the supreme authority and in control over His creation. There is no one higher than God.
God was “at the beginning” who breathed his breath into all His living creation. God made us, we did not make ourselves. God is unlimited in His power, and unchanging in His Love for us. God has been and always will be faithful in His love, mercy, and grace. Everything we are and all that we have is because of God. There is no one like our God!
God’s Word verifies what God knows. Paul consistently reiterates and restates to the religious without relationship, (who Paul used to be) who God is from Scripture with what His Son did to save us, change our minds, and transform behaviors by His power working in us. Jesus changed everything about Paul because Jesus turned everything around for Paul. Paul, who was one of the “religious elites”, has been changed from the inside out by Jesus. “It takes one to know one.” This is his testimony…
Romans 2, The Message
God Is Kind, but Not Soft
1-2 Those people are on a dark spiral downward. But if you think that leaves you on the high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn’t so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you’ve done.
3-4 You didn’t think, did you, that just by pointing your finger at others you would distract God from seeing all your misdoings and from coming down on you hard? Or did you think that because he’s such a nice God, he’d let you off the hook? Better think this one through from the beginning. God is kind, but he’s not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.
5-8 You’re not getting by with anything. Every refusal and avoidance of God adds fuel to the fire. The day is coming when it’s going to blaze hot and high, God’s fiery and righteous judgment. Make no mistake: In the end you get what’s coming to you—Real Life for those who work on God’s side, but to those who insist on getting their own way and take the path of least resistance, Fire!
9-11 If you go against the grain, you get splinters, regardless of which neighborhood you’re from, what your parents taught you, what schools you attended. But if you embrace the way God does things, there are wonderful payoffs, again without regard to where you are from or how you were brought up. Being a Jew won’t give you an automatic stamp of approval. God pays no attention to what others say (or what you think) about you. He makes up his own mind.
12-13 If you sin without knowing what you’re doing, God takes that into account. But if you sin knowing full well what you’re doing, that’s a different story entirely. Merely hearing God’s law is a waste of your time if you don’t do what he commands. Doing, not hearing, is what makes the difference with God.
14-16 When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong. Their response to God’s yes and no will become public knowledge on the day God makes his final decision about every man and woman. The Message from God that I proclaim through Jesus Christ takes into account all these differences.
Religion Can’t Save You
17-24 If you’re brought up Jewish, don’t assume that you can lean back in the arms of your religion and take it easy, feeling smug because you’re an insider to God’s revelation, a connoisseur of the best things of God, informed on the latest doctrines! I have a special word of caution for you who are sure that you have it all together yourselves and, because you know God’s revealed Word inside and out, feel qualified to guide others through their blind alleys and dark nights and confused emotions to God. While you are guiding others, who is going to guide you? I’m quite serious. While preaching “Don’t steal!” are you going to rob people blind? Who would suspect you? The same with adultery. The same with idolatry. You can get by with almost anything if you front it with eloquent talk about God and his law. The line from Scripture, “It’s because of you Jews that the outsiders frown on God,” shows it’s an old problem that isn’t going to go away.
25-29 Circumcision, the surgical ritual that marks you as a Jew, is great if you live in accord with God’s law. But if you don’t, it’s worse than not being circumcised. The reverse is also true: The uncircumcised who keep God’s ways are as good as the circumcised—in fact, better. Better to keep God’s law uncircumcised than break it circumcised. Don’t you see: It’s not the cut of a knife that makes a Jew. You become a Jew by who you are. It’s the mark of God on your heart, not of a knife on your skin, that makes a Jew. And recognition comes from God, not legalistic critics.
WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” –Jesus, Matthew 7:3-5
Paul is developing Kingdom of God thinking that Jesus wants us to have. Kingdom of God thinking points the way to salvation for everyone through Jesus. Kingdom of God thinking leaves all the judging to Jesus for only God, who knows our hearts has the right to judge. Paul is committed to Jesus with a desire to be more like Him in every way. He reminds us…
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17
Paul speaks the same words Jesus spoke to the religious elite when He walked the earth. This is happening all because of God’s intervention in his life. Paul no longer thinks he knows it all; because now he knows the One who does!
Paul, led by a new Spirit, God’s Holy Spirit, repeats the words of Jesus concerning the sovereignty and salvation of God. He also speaks of the useless pursuit of merely adhering to the Law of God without accepting the work of Jesus, God’s Son to save us who reconnected us to God in a growing, intimate relationship with God.
Paul no longer leans on his own understanding of the Law; but wholly leans on God’s Holy Spirit who teaches him to trust God completely, believe in His Son without reservation and timidity, while giving his life to God daily so he can grow in God’s love more and more each day. Love God. Love Others. Jesus said all the commandments hang on these two laws—the Law of Love.
Paul reminds us that we are not God. Only God is God. We have no authority to point fingers and criticize with condemnation. The only pointing to be done is to point the Way to Jesus!
Know the Enemy enough to recognize him and resist him…
Satan’s best tools of destruction are not from outside the church, they are from within the church. A church will never die from the immorality in Hollywood or the corruption in Washington. But it will die from corrosion within—from those who bear the name of Jesus but have never met him, and from those who have religion, but no relationship.
GET TO KNOW THE ONE WHO LOVES YOU MOST…
Spend uninterrupted time with Jesus today. Tell him your thoughts, dreams, worries, and sins. He is always ready to bend down, sit with us, wipe our tears, and listen. Jesus will mend our broken hearts while caring enough to open our eyes to Truth which leads to Real Life. Call on the Name of Jesus who takes us by the hand and leads us on the narrow, but greater path to everlasting Life.
(If you want to avoid crowds, this path is the one less traveled.)
Lord,
Thank you for always being with us. Thank you for saving our souls. Thank you for being for “whoever believes” with the offer of a loving relationship with you—forever!
In Jesus Name, Amen
Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus) 