10/05/2025
May 9, 2025
God is Bigger Than Our Knowledge of Him
By Francis Frangipane
When God moves in the earth, He calls out the lowly people who are not satisfied by mere knowledge about Him, but who want God Himself. The Lord invades the lives of this people and begins to teach them the difference between His actual living presence and their knowledge about Him. He challenges what they think is right, and strips them of pride, enabling them to hear from Him and be led into His presence.
When we first come to God, we have so much of His joy and presence in our new life and very little knowledge about Him and His ways. We just love God: we have been saved! But slowly, a subtle change occurs and we gain knowledge. We begin, imperceptibly, to serve our knowledge about God, and this diminishes our Life with God. As our knowledge grows, it can actually envelop us, and we begin to lose the vibrant expression of the real God. Thus, the Lord causes us to lose confidence in our organized logic and programs and draw us into the ability to hear and obey His voice.
The Scriptures reveal to us how difficult it is to comprehend all that God is: "To know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge" (Eph 3:19). "…The peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension…" (Phil 4:7). "…Rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory (1 Peter 1:3 KJ). "… The unfathomable riches of Christ" (Eph 3:8). We fail in our attempt to put into words something we have no words to express, and that which we cannot describe, we cannot lock into a box called knowledge.
The Knowledge of Good and Evil
As in the Garden of Eden we too, must choose between the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen:2:17). Our growing relationship with the Lord rescues us from our opinions about what is right and wrong and we begin to think as He thinks. There is a vast difference between the way God perceives Christianity and that which we have identified as typical. Often our view of it comes under the heading of "knowledge of good and evil". In God's purpose for His people, every time the sick are prayed for there would be healing. They would be continually led by His Spirit in revelation knowledge and wisdom and be holy, intolerant of sin. And, there would be only one church in the city.
We read in Deuteronomy of the Israelites coming out of Egypt. "Then the Lord heard the sound of your words, and he was angry and took and oath saying, "Not one of this evil generation shall see the good land which I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb the son on Jephunneh: he shall see it and to him and to his sons I will give the land on which he has set foot, because he has followed the Lord fully…" (Deut 1:34-38)
Joshua and Caleb passed the tests in the wilderness and followed the Lord fully, becoming the only Israelites who left Egypt to enter the Promised Land. There is a vast difference between following the Lord fully and being guided by our doctrines of God. Because the Hebrews did not follow God fully, even though they lived in the manifest presence of God, they had many complaints in the wilderness. Their hearts were full of worry and concern for themselves. They feared that because their little ones were too young to have a knowledge of good and evil, they would die in the wilderness.
God thought otherwise! "Moreover your little ones who you said would become a prey and your sons, who this day have no knowledge of good or evil, shall enter there and I will give it to them and they shall possess it" (Deut 1:39). It was because the "little ones" had no knowledge of good and evil that God could lead them supernaturally into the Promised land. The "little ones" had knowledge of Life, of God Himself. They were not locked into compartments of organized thinking and could hear what the Lord was saying. These "little ones" went on to possess the Promised Land. We are to be as the "little ones," led by the Lord not by our "Knowledge of good or evil."
In the wilderness God was attempting to free his people from the prison of their opinions about life and their self-centered concerns, that they could be led by the living God into His real life and fullness of His power. The Lord is also attempting to free us from our prison of knowledge about Him that we can hear the voice of the living God and be led into the reality of His Kingdom.
Life By the Words of God
"…You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
"And He humbled you and let you be hungry and fed you with manna which you did not know… that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord" (Deut 8:1-3). The dealings the Israelites went through coming out of Egypt were to teach them that they were sustained by the actual person of God and by His living word to them.
Obedience to the voice of God is our source of strength in Christianity. Life comes to us as His word enters into the dynamics of the church. Has a prophetic word come to you at a time of need? Suddenly, this word penetrates your heart and imparts Life. Or, possibly as you are reading the scriptures, the Spirit of God breathes life into your heart. This voice of God becomes a living dimension of Himself changing our minds and motives.
In the above scripture in Deuteronomy, we read that God let His people become hungry that they would know their source of life. The Lord refrains from allowing our efforts and strengths to prosper that we can know that our blessings and strength come from Him. For this to happen we must learn to hear the voice of God over the clamor of our minds. To obey God is to be able to discern the difference between the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. On the day we eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, we die! We miss God's will.
In the 60's, people's search for joy and happiness erupted into something that allowed Satan to offer fulfillment. This has led millions of people into drug addiction, witchcraft and demonic possession. During this time, the Lord began to speak and move and the Charismatic Renewal was born. He freed many from the trap of traditional Christianity and brought His life into our services. Joy was restored to the church!
The Faith Movement followed with its emphasis on prosperity. Error and abuse developed in this and disapproving of this I rejected the whole message of faith. Consequently, because of lack of power in my own prayer life, I had attained a form of godliness without really having the power of it. Yet, God gave me grace to come out of my knowledge of good and evil long enough to hear what He was saying through movement concerning faith. I was healed and my faith was restored.
There is a knowledge that we amass and wrap around ourselves, until it becomes a tomb to us. As we are freed from this, we never stop bowing before Him in worship, desiring more of His fullness. We become ravenous for God, seeking Him in worship and in prayer, hungering for Him that He might satisfy us. The freedom to live the unalterable truths of the Lord causes our hearts to become sensitive to the heart of God, thus, we begin to process the Land the God wants to give us.
In this hour, the Lord Jesus Christ has girded Himself in battle armor. He is connecting His body and making it one fighting force in the earth. In this hour, God has brought an anointing to do warfare; and anointing to take our cities.
Several years ago I had a dream in which I was talking with the pastors of this city. As we shared, the Lord spoke to us, "Before Gideon took his nation, he took his city. And before he took the city, he confronted the altars that were made in the city of powers of darkness. And, I am going to give you this city, I am going to give you this nation."
We are going to see a powerful revival across this land. We must be sensitive to the voice of God and follow His leading – learning from the past but given to seeking Him for what he is saying now. God is building a church that will be a weapon in His hands to pull down the powers of darkness. He is going to do something with this generation that has not been done before. If we are locked into our knowledge of what church has been, this will hinder us from seeing clearly what the Lord is doing now.
I believe that the glory of God will be seen upon our land. I believe city after city will be turned back to Jesus. There will be cities that will not turn to the Lord and they will become so shrouded in darkness that it can actually be felt. But, there will be regions of light, joy and celebration occurring and the presence of the Lord will fill His church to a degree that we have never before experienced.
