The answer to the title question obviously is, “
Everything
!” Scripture affirms that God knows everything about our hearts, the number of hairs on our heads and even the words in our mouths before we speak them, hence we exclaim with the psalmist: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, I can’t fathom it . . .” (Psalm 139:6). In reading these chapters about God’s relationship with Abraham, we discover the answer to the question is crucial to our eternal destiny, therefore we do well to consider what God knows about us and change our ways as needed.
Abraham had such an intimate relationship with the Lord that he was known as the friend of God (James 2:23). Therefore, God would share with Abraham his plans for Sodom and Gomorrah. God’s friendship with Abraham was based on at least four key virtues that God knew he possessed. 1. He was a man of faith — the foundation of every other virtue. 2. He was a man of humility before God. 3. He was a man of prompt obedience to God’s commands. 4. He was a man who would teach his children to follow the Lord. Because God knew these things about Abraham, he chose to bless him with a promised inheritance and with a son through whom he would bless all the nations of the world. God chose Abraham and blessed him on the basis of what he knew about him.
Does God know that you, like Abraham, have a faith that is demonstrated by humility and by complete obedience to him even when it is hard? Does he know that you have commanded your children in the ways of the Lord to do what is just and right? If you have only an empty faith with an appearance of being righteous, God surely knows it. Turn to him in repentance lest you be in danger of hearing the fateful words of Jesus, “Then will I profess unto them, ‘I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity’” (Matthew 7:23).
“When he shall come with trumpet sound, O may I then in him be found, dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne” (From the hymn “My Hope is Built”).
Rev. Bill Monroe, Vernon, Vt.
Extended Scripture: Genesis 17-18, KJV
