Know That He Is God

How do you know what you know? That may be a question you’ve never considered. The study of how we know what we know is called epistemology. It turns out that there are actually many ways of arriving at what we consider to be truth. For example, we may trust personal experience; we may stick our finger in a cup of water to determine wheth- er it’s hot. That’s one way to know.

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now that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

- Psalm 100:3

Or we may trust less direct observations. We may place a tea bag in the cup and watch how it behaves. Such methods work in the material world, but how do we know about God? We can’t touch God. We can’t put him under the microscope. In addition, we have this problem of sin that bends us away from knowing God and toward knowing ourselves. Is it even possible to know God? Yes, but only if he reveals himself to us. In Psalm 100, we are commanded to know God: “Know that the Lord, he is God!” (Ps 100:3). But the command comes in the context of his revelation of himself to us. Through the work of Jesus, God has made us his people so that we can know him as God. And when we know him, we give thanks.

Blessings,
Pastor Bryan E. Drebes

Rev. Bryan Drebes is Pastor at Pacific Hills Lutheran Church in Omaha Nebraska

Pastor Drebes attended Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, beginning in 1997.  He spent the summer of 1999 teaching English to Chinese middle school teachers in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China.  He served a four-month vicarage at St. John Lutheran Church, Plymouth, Wisconsin, followed by eight months at Bethany Lutheran Church, Overland Park, Kansas. Pastor Drebes was ordained into the Office of the Holy Ministry at Zion Lutheran Church, Palmyra, Missouri on August 19, 2001, and installed as Associate Pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church, Overland Park, Kansas on September 9, 2001.  He served Bethany for 14 years.  Pastor Drebes accepted a Divine