Read Part1

Being aware of our actions is something even the world preaches. How much more does God preach it? Open the first page of the Bible, is it there? Yes it is. God wants us to be aware of how this world came into being. He is making us aware of His actions. He is not shy in telling us the actions of those He created either. He tells us how some folks disobeyed Him and some obeyed Him. Our awareness of these facts gives us hope for our own behaviour. There is no way to improve any of our life skills until we are aware of the actions we are taking to create our own issues. God has this knowledge and we have this knowledge.

I always begin each Life Skills Session with awareness training. We can only begin our abundant life with awareness. We need to know what we are doing that is robbing us of abundance first then we need to modify the lies into truth to pursue the abundant life. It makes sense but how often do we try to skip the awareness phase and move right into the doing phase. If we do not know where we are going when we go how can we get to this unknown place. This is why so many people, including Christians, are going in circles all of their life. Let us stop, learn what we are doing wrong and go in the right direction. This is the way to go from foolishly spinning in circles to the straight path of knowledge.

Abound in Knowledge

If we incline our ear to wisdom and apply our heart to understanding we will find the knowledge of God (Proverbs 2). The straight path to knowledge is wisdom and understanding. There is only one place to learn – the Lord. Reading the Word of God is the only way to acquire the knowledge we need to dispel the lies that make us into fools. We first learn of our sin then made aware of the lies causing us to go down the path of sin. The devil fears God because His truth sets us free from those lies. The last thing he wants us to do is abound in knowledge so he feeds us lies so close to the truth that we believe them. When we read God Word He will feed us truths so thoroughly we will begin to learn of the lies. This can only happen if we are reading His Word and gaining the knowledge of Him. The devil wishes for us to be enslaved but God wished for us to be enriched in everything by Him (I Corinthians 1:5). Being enriched in the Lord makes us abound in knowledge all day long.

“Gold there is, and rubies in abundance, but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel.” (Proverbs 20:15) How rare is it to speak to someone who knows what the deep lies are that cause them to sin. Jesus said when you are His disciple you shall know the truth and IT shall set you free (John 8:32). This alone should send you searching for the truth in His Words. The freedom of knowing why we act foolishly helps us to put the lies off and strive to prevent sin from happening again in the future. If we feel foolish behaviour bubbling up we can push it back down with the Truth. Knowing and using the Word of God is how we will be able to push those lies back down (Matthew 4:1-11). This knowledge first comes from a fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:7) and knowing the devil has come to destroy everything God has created including you (John 10:10). Jesus has come to give life more abundantly and He does this with His Word. Do not let yourself be destroyed from lack of knowledge. He will be with you as you learn. He will neither leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5). Speaking the Truth will make us abound in knowledge all day long.

You know where to go to get this knowledge and you know speaking the truth makes us abound in knowledge the only place left to go is to set our heart on seeking it. This is not easy but worth every minute we go seeking. We need to decide if we want to be the rare jewel that speaks knowledge in our world. If our answer is “yes” we need to set our heart to go after it at all costs. Is living a life free from anguish worth it? Is living a life free from sin worth it? Is the current pain for the future joy worth it? I say, “YES!” Jesus says, “YES!” “The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.” (Proverbs 15:14) Your ears have heard His Word now we must have a discerning heart that acquires knowledge with ears that seek to hear it. This is harder than it looks today because there are fewer “rare jewels” than there used to be. Check the statistics on church going Canadians today compared to yesteryear. There are more false churches and more false prophets today (Matthew 24:11) we need to weed through for the one who actually teaches the truth. It is easier to weed through people is we do not rely on them for the knowledge we need. No one knows you better than the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:11). Don’t look to people for the truth but to God’s Word. It is the only place we can trust to find the whole truth. Always seek the truth from the Word of God and you will abound in knowledge all the day long.

Your Choice to Escape

Being aware of our actions and the ramifications of them is how we can become aware of our thought process too. Sometimes admitting to the general lies leads us to begin seeing the deeper lies that made us who we are today. The general sins are the sins everyone already sees, it is the deep sins we need to get too. When we start recognizing them we can either ignore them to continue in the foolishness or we can pay attention to them to become knowledgeable. We have the choice. How can we choose anything else but God? If we call ourselves a Christian the choice should be easy. There is a lot of pain involved in gaining this knowledge but we have one thing on the world when it comes to dealing with it – Jesus! We can call on Him to give us the knowledge we need to endure it. We might be tempted to walk away because of the anguish but God will always provide an escape before we sin (1 Corinthians 10:13). The escape will be based on whether you chose to abound in foolishness or abound in knowledge. Choose to abound in knowledge and God will tell you the escape.