We need to Know God and His Ways, and we Need to live with the Consciousness of God

In our morning revival these weeks we return to the Crystallization-study of Exodus, and this week in particular we focus on the topic of Knowing God and His Ways; we need to know God and His ways!

Moses asked God saying, Let me know Your ways, that I may know You, so that I may continue to find favor in Your sight (Exo. 33:13). Moses desired to know God directly; he realized that, in order to know God, he needed to know God’s ways, so he asked Him in this regard.

It would be very pleasing to our God if we inwardly ask Him, Lord, please let me now know Your ways so that I may know You!

An initial answer to Moses’ prayer was later in ch. 34:5-8 where God revealed Himself to Moses, and His full response to Moses was God’s revelation of Himself and His ways both in His lovingkindness and in the severity of His righteousness. All that Moses could do was just to worship God.

There are therefore two main questions that would motivate us and humble us,

Do we Know God? Do we know God’s Ways? We need to Know God and His Ways

Do you know God? We may know the Father, know the Lord Jesus, but do we know God as God? Can we witness how we came to know God as God, and how did we respond to God’s enabling us to know Him as God?

There’s a great and desperate need among us to truly know God. In the Old Testament we see Job, whom God identified to be a righteous man, none like him on earth; but Job did not know God, because the greatest hindrance of his knowing God was Job himself.

In Job 42:5-6, as the trial was nearing its end by God revealing Himself to Job, he admitted, I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You; therefore, I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes.

We all begin with learning about God, hearing about Him, and maybe even formulating a doctrine concerning God; but God is never satisfied with having a people on earth who can at best talk about Him. So He has His ways to deal with us, care for us, and cause us to know Him; He knows exactly what to do, how to do it, to what extent, and when, with the result is that, at last, we know God as God, and we have no issue with God’s ways.

The second major question is, Do you know God’s ways? When we know God, we have no more reasoning, no more prayers of trying to change God’s ways; rather, we recognize His ways, and we worship God for His ways.

God desires to gain such a people who are truly open to Him, one with Him, and who are willing for Him to do with them, to them, and through them whatever He wills. Only such people can carry out God’s economy to end this age.

God knows us; He is for us, and He desires that we would know Him; He knows what we need to experience and pass through, and He understands very well that we cannot know Him as God and worship Him as God unless He enables us to see Him as God.

God knows our nature: He knows we cannot recognize His ways apart from Him supplying us and saving us. But the Lord must have a people in His recovery who truly know Him and know His ways.

The Lord Jesus called God “My Father and your Father, My God and your God” – as the Son in the Godhead, the Father was His Father, but as a Man, God was His God. We are brothers of Christ, sons of God, and as such God is our Father; however, as men in the old creation, God is our God.

We may know God in His economy – and we cannot speak enough of God who in the Son as the Spirit was processed and consummated to be the life-giving Spirit; we can never over-emphasize this aspect of the truth. But the concern is how do we handle it.

Do we know the God who is on the throne? Do we trivialize God and “domesticate” Him (in a sense)? Is God to us merely breath, life, bread, and water? Of course, we can never over-emphasize all these aspects, but at the same time we need to know God in His unique Godhead.

In Christ God became man so that man may become God in life, nature, constitution, and expression, but not in the Godhead. To know God as God is to be able to respond to God when He’s acting according to what He is in the Godhead; when does something as God, we have nothing to say.

He’s the Potter, we are the clay, and we have no authority to say anything. He formed us: who are we to say, Why are You doing this? May we be brought by the Lord to the point where we honestly tell Him,

Lord, we want to know You and we want to know Your ways. We love You. We open to You. Do in us whatever You will. Whatever is the desire in Your heart concerning us, do it! By Your grace, we believe in You, we trust in You, and we are one with You! Lord, You are God, and we are human beings who want to know You. Put in us a seeking to know You not only as the processed God in Your economy but also as God in Your unique Godhead so that we would know how to respond when You are acting according to what You are in the Godhead!

We need to Know God, have the Consciousness of God and the Full Knowledge of God

God delights in us knowing Him more than in burnt offerings (Hosea 6:6). He wants us, His people, to know Him; He desires that we would pursue knowing God (Hosea 6:3, 6).

In a sense, God needs us to know Him; those who know God are empowered and take action; there’s a lot of action the Lord wants us to take, but only those who know Him can take it properly.

Our knowledge of God is even more important than our service to God. We cannot merely serve God without knowing Him; if we serve God without knowing Him, we will not be acceptable to God. Actually, our service of God should be based on our knowledge of Him; otherwise, how will we know what to do, how to do it, and in what way to do it?

We need to have the consciousness of God – the consciousness of our relation with God; we need to live in an intimate fellowship with God, having and keeping a good and pure conscience toward God (see 1 Pet. 2:19; 3:16; 1 Tim. 1:5, 19; 3:9; 2 Tim. 1:3). We need to live with a God-consciousness, which is even keener than our self-consciousness.

How can we have a consciousness of God? With our body we contact and are aware of the physical world; with our soul we contact, relate to, and are conscious of the psychological world, especially of our self; with our spirit, we are conscious of God.

Physical consciousness enables us to sense things outside the body, self-consciousness enables us to sense ourselves, and God-consciousness enables us to sense God. The body has physical consciousness to contact things outside the body, the soul has self-consciousness to sense the things of the self, and the spirit has God-consciousness to deal with God and sense the things of God. (Further Talks on the Knowledge of Life, p. 127, by Witness Lee)

We need to have such a keen consciousness of God in all that we do and say that we don’t have to “pause and remember God” or formally pray to God but we would be God-conscious persons, those who have and keep a good conscience toward God. We need to confess our sins and deal with any offense in our conscience so that we may have a pure conscience, a conscience that cares for God Himself only.

Our regenerated spirit has a keen sense toward God, a God-consciousness to deal with God and sense the things of God (see Rom. 1:9; 9:1). The more we exercise our spirit and deal with anything between us and the Lord, the more we have a God-consciousness, realizing what God wants to do and being one with Him in His ways.

However, it is really sad if we are in the church for decades and yet we have no God-consciousness nor are we aware when something is of God. Oh Lord Jesus!

For us to have the consciousness of God is to live in the spirit according to God (see 1 Pet. 4:6; Rom. 8:2; 1 John 2:27). We need to exercise our spirit, live in spirit, and walk according to the mingled spirit.

We need to have the full knowledge of God; the full knowledge of God is an experiential knowledge of God (2 Pet. 1:2, 8). The full knowledge of God is for our participation in and enjoyment of His divine life and divine nature (2 Pet. 1:3-4).

May we be those who grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ until we arrive at the full knowledge of God. The realization of the knowledge of our Lord equals truth, the reality of all that He is (as in John 1:14 and 17).

Lord, may we have the consciousness of God and the full knowledge of God in our daily living! Keep us living in an intimate fellowship with God, having and keeping a good and pure conscience toward God. We exercise our spirit, Lord, and we deal with anything that You expose as hindrance or obstacle, so that we may have a pure conscience. We choose to live in the mingled spirit according to God so that we may have an experiential knowledge of God and arrive at the full knowledge of the Triune God!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from Crucial Truths in the Holy Scriptures, vol. 4, pp. 573-577, 594-597 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (part 4, 2016 Summer Training), week 2 / msg. 2, Knowing God and His Ways.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Have Thine own way, Lord, / Have Thine own way; / Thou art the Potter, / I am the clay. / Mould me and make me / After Thy will, / While I am waiting, / Yielded and still. (Hymns #449)
  # Lord, in these days I want to set my heart, / Ever and only, always on You, / That I would not defiled be, / Keeping my heart so single and pure for Thee. (Song on desiring to know God)
  # In those regenerated by the Lord / There is an inner knowledge bountiful; / Thus we the outward teachings do not need, / But God we inwardly may know in full. (Hymns #739)