We Are Saved By What We Don’t Know

We Are Saved By What We Don’t Know June 3, 2021

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My friend Kenneth Tanner posted this on his Facebook page a few days ago:

“We are not saved by what we know or don’t know, by what we do or don’t do, by what we believe or don’t believe but by the saving nature of a God who is not immune to pain or obscurity, who makes himself the servant of his creation, who loves creation and puts his creation first.

“No one is saved because they know something, especially something that no one else knows. The gospel is not the secret possession of a few but a public story that belongs to everyone, everywhere. We are saved by God because it is simply the nature of God to save what God loves.”

My response to this post was: “So, we’re saved by what we DON’T know.”

And I think that’s true.

As Kenneth emphasizes, it’s not what we know that saves us. The Gospel is not about having the right information about God. Although most Evangelical Christians today seem to be fully convinced that it IS all about that.

Remember: The opposite of Faith is not Doubt, it’s Certainty.

So, to have faith is to hope, to trust, to believe in something that is beyond knowledge. In fact, this is exactly what the Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians when he tries to describe the indescribable love of God. He talks about praying that we could “…know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” [Eph. 3:19]

Sadly, we’ve lost this sense of awe and wonder and mystery when it comes to our faith. We’ve traded those things for a carefully constructed systematic theology that defines, describes, explains and “provides every man an answer” so that we believe we have understood and comprehended the God who defies comprehension.

God, simply put, is in our little theological box. We have bound God in our Book. We have defined God in our Theology. Any sense of mystery is erased. Wonder is evaporated. Awe is unnecessary.

But, as Tanner reminds us, it’s really not at all about what we know. Our information is not what transforms us. Our knowledge is not what makes the difference.

We are gloriously ignorant. Our wisdom is hopelessly inadequate.

And this is our choice: We can either have our thimble full of “knowing” God, or we can embrace the mind-blowing endlessness of an infinite God who refuses to be defined, explained or described by anyone.

God can be “known” only in the sense that we may experience God’s presence. God can be “known” only in the stillness, the silence; where the absence of language gives way to an understanding that we are loved, and known and treasured and fully accepted by this Creator who would rather die than live without any of us.

So, if we are not saved by what we know, but by what we do not know, then I highly recommend embracing this great Mystery of God. Become acquainted with exploring the limits of your understanding. Ride beyond the borders of your expectations. Abandon all you think you know about God, and even about yourself. Take time to be still, and to know, this God who dwells in unapproachable light, and yet welcomes us to boldly seek and knock and, yes, to find, the endlessly unfolding mystery that will forever be unveiled into an endless eternity of discovery, wonder, and exquisite awe.

Fall in love with this great unknowing. Find yourself known in this unraveling.

Don’t settle for what you think you know.

There is more of God to know than you will ever know.

**

Blood Moons! War In The Middle East! The Temple Rebuilt In Jerusalem! What do all of these have to do with the Second Coming of Christ? NOTHING!

If you’re curious about the End Times and wonder what the Bible really says about the Second Coming of Christ, I invite you to join me starting Monday, June 7, 2021 for a 3-week online course designed to help you make sense of it all.

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Keith Giles and his wife, Wendy, work with Peace Catalyst International to help build relationships between Christians and Muslims in El Paso, TX.  Keith was formerly a licensed and ordained minister who walked away from organized church over a decade ago to start a home fellowship that gave away 100% of the offering to the poor in the community. Today he is the author of the best-selling “Jesus Un” series of books, including “Jesus Unforsaken: Substituting Divine Wrath With Unrelenting Love” which is available now on Amazon.


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