Pentecost Season Devotion, July 8

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Matthew 11:27

Knowledge is a strange thing. So often we live our lives blissfully unaware. A common saying of a few years back rings true, “We don’t know what we don’t know!” In ignorance we plow forward through life until something untoward happens.

It has often been said that experience is the best teacher but learning things “the hard way” can be cruel. No one wants a child to experience a hot stove the hard way. Learning that lightning is high voltage electricity by experience can be an end of life event.

So we seek wise teachers for ourselves and children. We want our schools to impart knowledge to our students so that they can succeed in life. Our society knows the wisdom of free public education. Not only do families succeed when children are educated, our whole society improves when young people possess the knowledge to become successful citizens.

It is sad that our churches are not as wise as the world when it comes to education. We often see training children for faithful functioning in the Kingdom of God as an expensive option that we ought to avoid. Some make the excuse that providing free Christian education to children in the family of God is fiscally irresponsible. Yet the greatest knowledge possible for life and eternal life is taught in Christian schools.

It is impossible to learn to know our Heavenly Father or His Son from public education. This valuable knowledge comes only through the study of God’s holy word so that Jesus can reveal to us the Father. Without Jesus, no one can know the Father.

On the Last Day everyone will know God by experience. For some this experience will be most unpleasant as the folly of their ignorance is revealed and judged.  For this reason we are thankful for wise teachers who care for the little ones whom Jesus loves.

May we learn to redouble our efforts to support Christian schools as they prepare citizens for life in the Kingdom of God for time and eternity.

Prayer: Thank you, Jesus for revealing to me the Father’s love. Grant that I may be faithful in sharing that knowledge with people around me, especially the children. Amen.

Jesus Christ with children

Danish painter Carl Heinrich Bloch (May 23, 1834 – February 22, 1890)

God’s richest blessings in Christ,

Pastor Philip Quardokus