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Know: The Watch Letter


This past week has been a very sobering week for me. God has been showing me places where I still allow religion to guide me versus my relationship with Him. I have been well-taught about a sincere relationship with God by my pastor. Still, sometimes we can either not fully be free from something or backslide into old ways and patterns and not catch ourselves because somewhere, we have let the word slip or not taken it to heart.


Through my pastor, his companion, Apostle Felicia, and the witness of different ministers in the body, God has been dealing with genuinely knowing God for several weeks. Not just knowing what he can do but having an intimate relationship with him and getting to know who he is.


I believe the Lord has been emphasizing that when he is talking about the word "know," he wants us to think of it from the context of the word "intimacy." In the Bible, the word "know" is often used to denote "intimacy."


Intimacy encompasses emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual closeness and connection. Intimate relationships include having a familiarity and understanding with a person that is unlike any other relationship.


I am learning that if we aren't careful to cultivate our relationship with God, our intimate walk with him will become simply steps of religion.


Religion is a system or pattern of behaviors, practices, morals, beliefs, and views. But a relationship with God is about being committed to Him and having sincere acquaintance with him, which means having knowledge of or experience with him.


For so many years, our pastor, Chief Apostle Gunn, has emphasized the importance of experiencing God for ourselves; now I understand more and more why this is so essential.

I wanted to share a recap and some side notes from Chief Apostle Gunn's message on July 23, 2023, that speaks to the importance of coming out of religion and into a relationship with God, our Father.


  • Religion will tell you all kinds of stuff that's not accurate. That's why you've got to read the word of God (for yourself) and be accurate in what God is saying to you.

  • Religion can have you believing the wrong thing because of your twisted emotions.

  • We've got to see the bigger picture. Relationship with God helps us to see it. Religion can cause us not to see clearly because we can put too many limits on God's will when we are religious or acting out of emotion.

  • With relationship, you can take your situation or concern directly to Jesus. (You don't have to go through any ritual, another person, or wait for a particular time to talk to Him because relationship means you have accepted salvation, and your sin no longer separates you from God.)

  • Without relationship with God, we won't know the truth. We can turn away the truth so much that we can start believing the world we created and blaming everything and everyone else but us.

  • We can't rely on our feelings. They aren't accurate because we base them on our past experiences and what we think instead of what God can do and what he thinks.

  • We must choose not to be spiritually ignorant. There's no excuse to be a fool when you can know the truth. The only way to know the truth is to know God and his word.


Chief Apostle Gunn was also teaching from 1 Kings 17 during the message. The prophet Elijah brought a woman's son who died back to life. But it wasn't the first thing God did for her through the prophet. Elijah knew God and knew that whatever God told him to do would work. When Elijah met the woman, she was preparing for her and her son to die because they did not have enough to eat. But he gave her some instructions through the power of God, and she followed them. She and her son lived! So, in a sense, they had been resurrected from the death she thought they would die. This shows us why we can't rely on our knowledge or feelings because her thinking was death, but God's thinking was life. Chief Apostle Gunn taught us before that often, God uses miracles as an opportunity and invitation to get to know Him.

Later, the same woman's son fell sick and died. And she said to Elijah, "What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?" Chief Apostle Gunn showed us how she let religion tell her that her sin caused her son to die instead of knowing that God had a plan even in her son's death.

What if religion caused her to be blind to the fact that God had already resurrected her and her son before by providing them with food to keep them from dying and instead caused her to rely on tradition to figure out what happened? After all she had already seen the man of God do, it wasn't until after he resurrected her son from the death he died due to sickness that she said: "Now by this I know that thou art a man of God and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth."


Chief Apostle Gunn, through this example, was calling us to understand that our religion can make us ignorant - without knowledge - of what God is doing in the spirit. And that is what causes us to be destroyed.


The message pointed to the scripture: Hosea 4:6: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."


This made me think about how when you give someone a gift you are in a relationship with or related to, and they don't acknowledge it or act like they don't remember what you did for them. How would we feel if God forgot us as much as we forget him, or if God didn't take time to get involved in the details of our life like we continuously ignore the details of his word and plan of salvation?


 

If you have been blessed by any of the broadcast messages and posts on this website, please take time to sow a seed to support the ministry of Chief Apostle Gunn. We are also preparing to show special appreciation to him on Sept. 19. You can participate by giving at this link by Sept. 16. https://www.thebodyofchristinc.com/donate



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