Knowing

DEVOTION
GALATIONS
KNOWING
Gal 4:8-11
8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you know God — or rather are known by God — how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? 10 You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! 11 I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.
NIV
I knew I didn’t know him, but how is it he did not know me, even when I was enslaved to those things who by nature are not gods? There is a greater thing here in this meaning which I am starting to get a grip on. It is true I was enslaved to the principles of the world as there are outlined in the letter to the Colossians and I certainly did not know God. I had no relationship with him at all. I did not even have some conceptual idea of God, or loose religious experience appearing to have some kind of association with him, while all alone living in a worldly manner. The only emotion or disposition I might have had was to hate organized religion and hate God. I am not sure why I was like that; I must have had some deep problems and blamed God for the experiences of my youth, shutting him out of my mind and heart. I do remember it was miserable being like that. But now not only do I know God, but he has affirmed my relationship with him by proclaiming me to be his son. He knows me as his own now, as one of his followers, as a believer in the saving grace through Jesus Christ on the Cross. There is absolutely no way I would ever return to that former miserable state I was once in. But I wonder why some of my fellow believers allow themselves to get ensnared by all the pomp and ceremony of religious observances. I wonder if that is any better or worse than what those people in Galatia where doing. I certainly hope I have not gotten catch up in such religious observances. All I want to do in know God and have him know me in the sense of being one of his. To have a personal relationship with him as a son being able to cry out Abba to him and having him comfort me as a father who loves and cares for his family. What more can there be? What rules and regulations, what ordinances, what observances could ever add to my relationship with my God? I think all those things could only serve to distract from it rather than to add to it. When it comes right down to the truth it is all about knowing.