Tuesday, February 7, 2017
I spoke on this subject this past Sunday in church in our Spanish service. The previous Wednesday, in our monthly Men’s Bible Class, Pastor Leo, upon reading Proverbs 3:5-6, asked this question: “What does it mean to acknowledge God?” Well, that question immediately grabbed my attention and lingered in my heart and mind for the duration of the class, prompting me to meditate on it. You know, the Word of God has that effect in our hearts from time to time, as it well should. Psalm 1 says that those who “delight in the law of the Lord, and meditate on His law day and night” (vs. 2) will not only be blessed but will prosper in whatever they do.
Upon researching for the answer, I got a more complete understanding of what it means to really acknowledge God. My first thought, which I posed to those present, was this: “Have you ever found yourself in a public or social event where you spot someone you consider a close friend and upon nearing him or her, they ignore you by walking away or right by you without saying a word. It stings a bit, doesn’t it? What did they just do? They failed to acknowledge you. It is a form of disdain and lack of respect. It is their way of saying that you don’t matter. The verse in question, Proverbs 3:6, says: “In all thy ways acknowledge Him, (God) and He shall direct thy paths.” It is the same whenever we fail to acknowledge God in any affair of our lives. Without realizing it perhaps, we are indicating He does not matter to us.
Here are simple examples of what it means to acknowledge Him: When you give Him the credit and praise for every success in your life, you’re acknowledging Him. When you seek His guidance, blessing, approval, and direction in all your affairs, you are acknowledging Him. When you take the position that many do in this life by telling others that you are a self-made person and you have what you have with no one else’s help, you are not acknowledging Him, or anyone else for that matter. If I, as a servant of God, get caught up in a wave of emotion saying things like “I put the devil on the run” or “Satan doesn’t know who he’s dealing with”, I’m not acknowledging God, I’m acknowledging myself. And if I was able to make others think that I’m really something, then I also robbed God of His glory. Unfortunately, a lot of that is happening in many churches around the world today, where men have managed to rob God of His glory and tried to take it for themselves. The bottom line is that without God, we are nothing, we have nothing. And if we have any success in life, it is not because we are special but rather because God had mercy on us. Let’s make a sincere effort to acknowledge the Lord in every thing. He deserves it.
God’s word for today: (Isaiah 42:8) “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.”
