Q:  Hosea 4:6 says “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” What is knowledge from God and how do we develop this skill?

A:  Well, very simply, you have to really dig into the Word of God on your own.

I respect all kinds of ministers. I’m married to, I think, the best Bible teacher in the world, but nothing replaces my personal fellowship with God in the Word. It’s good to receive knowledge from other teachers, but when I open the Word of God and it’s just me and Him, this Word starts telling me who He is and who I am. I become a partaker of His divine nature, like it says in 2 Peter 1:4.

Let me illustrate this for you. Imagine you have a table in front of you, and it is set with all sorts of delicious food. If you sit there and just stare at it and say, “Oh, I love that soup. That’s such a delicious-looking cake. This food looks so beautiful,” you’re not going to actually know anything about it except what it looks like.

A lot of people, even believers, do that with their Bible. They look at their Bible sitting nicely in their living room or their bedroom, and they say, “Oh, it’s such a nice Bible. Oh, I love the Word of God.” But if you don’t open it, if you just look at this table and don’t eat from it, you’re not going to taste it, you’re not going to get its answers — it’s just a nice book!

So many times, we sit back and say, “Oh, I have so many problems. I need to call my sister or my friend. I want to tell her my problem,” and the Bible, everything that we need, just sits there. Friend, we need to get into the Word of God and really read it and study it for ourselves!

You might say, “I’m not a Bible scholar. I can’t just pick up the Bible and study it like that.” Well, I didn’t start out like a Bible scholar either. I just kept studying and looking for answers for my life. I just wanted to know Him, and if you want to know Him, you have to taste what’s in this Bible, just like if you want to taste the food on the table, you’ve got to put your fork in there and take a bite; then it can start to bring you the sustenance that you need. 

I’m telling you, you must have your own time with God. If you don’t get your own nourishment, you have to depend on somebody else and what they say, but if you want to know Him deeper and get the best answers and wisdom, then you have to read the Word for yourself. It says in Joshua 1:8 that if we will read this Word and meditate on it, our life will have good success, so that’s the answer.