If We Only Knew

Wayne Kniffen

Description

Not knowing who you are in Christ is the recipe for living in more defeat than victory. This is not God’s plan for your life.

Remaining ignorant about something means you don’t have to worry about it, feel responsible for it, or get upset by it.

That may be true in some instances, but not when it comes to knowing the truth about God’s word. In fact, being ignorant about your new-creation life that you have in Christ can be very costly.

This is the main reason so many believers are living defeated lives. One of the most important questions any believer in Christ should ask themselves is this: What is it that I don’t know that I don’t know?

The author contends that if we say that we believe right but we are behaving wrong, we are living in deception. When we start believing right, especially when it comes to who we are in Christ, we will start behaving right.

He also emphasizes that we don’t do good things to become who we will be in Christ. We do the right things because of who we already are in Christ.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Spiritual Growth
• Christian Living
• Philosophie et théologie
• Gift
• Victory
• Knowing
• Identity
• Hope
• Confidence

Informations

• Publié par: WestBow Press
• Date de parution: 29 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781664276079
• Langue: English

Extrait

If We Only Knew

IGNORANCE MAY NOT BE BLISS




WAYNE KNIFFEN







Copyright © 2022 Wayne Kniffen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.



WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
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Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
844-714-3454

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture marked (NKJV) taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked TPT are from The Passion Translation®. Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7608-6 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7609-3 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7607-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022915516



WestBow Press rev. date: 08/29/2022
















To the best elder ever; one of my strongest supporters and encouragers, an incredible spiritual brother, and a faithful friend: Ken Branum.



Contents
Foreword
Preface

1 A Gift Is a Container with Content
2 We’re More Than Conquerors
3 It Is Hard to Live like a Son if You Think like a Slave
4 The Gift of Living Water
5 All Things Are HIM-possible
6 We Don’t Have to Smell like What We’ve Been Through
7 We Can Walk on What Others Sink In
8 Dying Can Teach Us So Much about Living
9 Our Way Out of Temptation
10 Winning in Our Thought Lives
11 God Is Not Out to Get Us
12 You Have a Miracle in Your Hands
13 All We Need Is a Sling and a Stone
14 We Can Share Our Father’s Home but Not Share His Heart
15 Count It All Joy When Your Faith Is Tested
16 All We Need Is an Ear to Hear and a Leg to Stand On
17 Christ Is Our Life
18 Ignorance May Not Be Bliss
19 You Can Never Disappoint God
20 We Were Worth Saving
21 Death Is Dead to a Believer
22 The Deep State Every Child of God Has to Deal With

Conclusion
Chapter Briefs



Foreword
One of the greatest privileges of my postretirement life was to attend a meeting in Hereford, Texas, every Tuesday morning for eight years with several people from around the panhandle of Texas. Many of us traveled ninety or more round-trip miles each Tuesday to talk about God’s grace with special emphasis on the topic of the Great Exchange. (More on that in a moment.) It was a beautiful thing to observe how our joint exploration of God’s kingdom could transcend the walls of human-made denominations.
It was during those Tuesday meetings that I met, interacted with, and learned from Wayne Kniffen and other dear friends, all of whom are hungry to deepen their fellowship with the living God and with each other. Even though my wife and I no longer live in Texas, my extensive notes from those meetings continue to be a source of wisdom and inspiration. Those notes contain contributions from all the participants in the meeting, but I believe we all would agree that Wayne was particularly gifted with the ability to express kingdom truths with great clarity. That is why I was so pleased to learn that the wonderful things Wayne had been preaching and teaching for so many years were beginning to come together in the form of books that are now available to a global market.
Since two of Wayne’s books have already been published, I would like to take a moment to give you my version of a bird’s-eye view of how this third book joins the others as another piece of a puzzle that will continue to reveal the beautiful portrait of God’s love and peace. (Yes, Wayne, we look forward to more books in the future!)
In the first half of John 10:10 (NKJV), Jesus said that the enemy of our souls comes with one purpose in mind, and that is to steal, kill, and destroy. In his first book, The Scam , Wayne reveals that the primary thing this thief wants to steal from us is our true identity. If we permit that thief to steal our identity, then he has rendered us combat ineffective when it comes to fighting the good fight of faith. The symptoms of this theft include the inevitable spiritual burnout that comes from the self-imposed pressure to “perform” for God and the nagging sense that we never quite succeed; feeling like a spiritual failure and therefore feeling unloved by God; and living a hollow, inauthentic life where we just go through the motions.
In the second half of John 10:10 (NKJV), Jesus contrasted His own mission with that of the thief when He said that He came so that we might have not only life, but abundant life. In his second book, The Exchange , Wayne reveals the staggering extent of just how far Jesus was willing to go to deliver that gift of abundant life to us. (See, for example, 2 Corinthians 5:21 and 8:9, NKJV). Wayne unfolds the vast implications of the Great Exchange for our daily lives—implications that have drawn people for decades to that Tuesday meeting in Hereford so that they can “soak” in these truths and then watch their lives being transformed by them.
This third book to emerge from Wayne’s overflowing spirit continues to unveil the great feast that has been set before us by our loving Father. This book is not simply a list of facts, theories, or catchy phrases we can use to make ourselves or others feel better. No, this is more of a user’s manual that helps us move from simply knowing about the abundant (exchanged) life into actually living that life of intimate union with Jesus. It is interesting to observe how many unbelievers can quote the phrase “The truth will make you free,” perhaps without realizing that Jesus is the one who said them (John 8:32, NKJV). Wayne follows Jesus’s lead by telling the rest of the story. If we examine the context, we find that Jesus said that if we are His disciples, then we shall know the truth. Only then—that is, only after we know the truth—is that truth able to set us free. Now we can understand what the title of this book is designed to tell us. If we only knew these truths, then these truths would be able to set us free. You will notice that each chapter title in this book begins with “If we only knew,” followed by the name of the truth that is set forth in the chapter.
Especially in chapters 5 and 6, you will discover that this book is written by a man who has been, and still is, standing tall on the solid rock of Christ even as the enemy of our souls keeps trying to knock him down. From the physical battlefields of Vietnam to the spiritual battles brought about by the sudden death of his firstborn child and their soon-to-be-born baby, to his precious wife’s ongoing, years-long fight against cancer, Wayne Kniffen shares with us golden nuggets of truth that have been hard won in some of the deepest and darkest pits life can throw at us. (Only a person like that can write books such as these.) Even in the depths of that darkness, the light of truth has enabled Wayne to chisel out and carry these practical truths from the depths back up to the surface so that we can see and live them.
My prayer for you, dear reader, is a confident one: namely that, as you read these pages, you will be set free as you find rest in the finished work of Jesus and allow truth Himself to do His tender, loving work in your heart.
John O’Brien
Colorado Springs, Colorado



Preface
The Spirit of God was moving in an unprecedented way in our church and in our community. Our church family was buzzing with life. One of our Wednesday night services lasted until almost 11:00 p.m. What made this service even more unusual was that everyone was totally oblivious to the time. Attendance was growing exponentially, people were receiving Christ as their personal Lord and Savior in numbers, the number of first-time visitors were increasing, giving was on the rise—everything a pastor dreams of experiencing in his or her ministry was unfolding.
For over three months, my days were very long. The amazing thing about this is that there was not one time that I got tired. It was an extraordinary season. My mornings started early, and I would work late into the evening. The phone rang constantly. People would call, wanting me to talk to their kids, family members, and neighbors about accepting and receiving Christ as their Lord and Savior. I had the joy and privilege of leading many to Christ over the phone. In one church service alone, we baptized eighty-six adults.
Just before one of our Sunday services started, a young couple stopped me in the hallway for a pleasant good morning chat. This was a great couple. They were heavily involved in the life of our church and were always ready and