UNDERSTANDING DIVINE DESTINY-Destiny 1.0. WERE YOU KNOWN?

Jer 1:5

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;

Being known by God is also being known by the enemy. He will look out for you as God himself looks out for you. Let not God knowing you be left in the past, let it stay in the present tense. As we take the last 3 pillars of the series on destiny, it is important to note that we have entered into the most captivating and yet important stage. 

When God said he knew Jeremiah and in effect he knows us. What does He mean:

I believe the perception or insight is in two ways: 

1. He knew us before he formed us, even before we got into our mother's womb as tiny seed fertilised. This does not mean our souls were existing somewhere before we were born, or our souls had been formed somewhere, and God allocated the souls to us at conception. (This is the belief of some non Christian faith). It is that God is omniscient. That is, God knows everything that can be known about a character. He has complete unlimited knowledge, awareness or understanding of what we were, are and would be. This meant God had already mapped out everything as an Omniscient God, about us. Ps 139:7 says For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. He was familiar with us. He knew our being. He made our being. 

2. The other sense of the know/knew, is that He is our friend. He had always been our friend and now our friend anew when we gave ourselves over to Him. Even at that time He chose us, we didn't choose him. John 15:16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. And this is where the responsibility on us is higher. For whom much is given much is expected. The more God knows you, the more you need to raise your standard to meet His standard. God's standard is never lowered. 

Let's  look at the life of some children of destinies, and work out what it meant to say God knew us and God knows us. 

Adam (Gen 1-3)

God knew him, and God formed and created him and Eve. God wanted him as a friend, he wanted to fellowship with him and the bible says God would come down in the cool of the morning and fellowship with him. I think Adam was God's friend. Now because God knew him as a friend, the devil wanted to cut short his destiny to bring His friend to disrepute and by relationship cause sorrow to God. Satan, tempted Eve, She ate the forbidden fruit and she gave Adam and he ate from it. Their destinies got shut down, and truncated. God's standard was constant, Adam failed to measure up. God knew him, but he stopped knowing and trusting God. God's expectation of them did not meet up to God's standard.

Noah (Gen 6:9)

This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.

Another child of destiny. God knew him. He walked with God. It is clear that those that God knows, will walk with him. Even before he was born, God had known Noah, and when the time came to destroy the world, He searched the whole world and found Noah as someone that he could relate with. Noah did not let God down. He was saved with his family. Fulfilled and established destiny. Heb 11:7 says By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household...and became heir of righteousness which is according to faith.

Abraham

Gen 12-Gen 24

He is perhaps one of the most celebrated and to whom we can trace our spiritual lineage. Gal 3: 7-14 

God knew him before he was born. God chose him, and called him. He transcended from being known to being loved by God. He became God's friend. God said of him, can I do anything without telling my friend Abraham. In James 2:23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God.

Isaiah 41:8-9"But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, Descendant of Abraham My friend, 9You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, And called from its remotest parts And said to you, 'You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you

2 Chronicles 20:7
Our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?

God relied on him and when the time for test came, he did not let God down. God raised the level in Gen 17:1 when He said Go before me and be blameless...when the test of delay in child birth came, Paul recording the episode in Rm 4:17-22

And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. 20He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, 21and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. 22And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.” said, he was not found wanting. He was willing to wait, and kept faith. When in Gen 22 God asked for the child, his only child to be sacrificed, he did not fail God. He passed, and God loved him even more till the end of his life. Gen 24:1.. He was blessed in everything.

When God knows you, you come under tremendous test, but if you pass, He continues to know you. And He will promote you forever, and ensure your destiny is established.