God’s knowledge can be “A Cause for Joy”
James Montgomery Boice
There are three reasons this omniscience is a great blessing and a cause for joy among Christians.
First, because God knows all things, He knows the worst about us and yet has loved us and saved us. We needn’t fear that something within us will rise up to startle God, that some forgotten skeleton will come tumbling out of our closet to expose our shameful past. Nothing can happen that isn’t already known to God.
Second, God also knows the best about us, even though that best may be unknown to any other person. Perhaps things go in a way we didn’t intend. Then people say – even our friends – “How could so-and-so do a thing like that? I would have thought better of him.” They are critical and nothing we can do or say seems to change their opinion. What then? There is comfort in knowing that God, who knows all things, knows that we really did do our best. And He is patient with us.
Third, God knows what he is going to make of us. He knows the end for which we have been made: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Romans 8:29). God is determined to make us like Jesus Christ. Sometimes we get discouraged in the Christian life. We take a step forward and fall half a step back. We think God must be discouraged with us. But He isn’t. We have a great destiny and in its light all the vaunted achievements of our age and our personal achievements fade into insignificance.
How Great Thou Art, p. 256