Studying Institutes ... (2)

Chapter 1
The knowledge of God and the knowledge of self (my own devotion)

Here is the first part of Institutes which stunningly declared that to know your self better cannot be separated apart from the journey of knowing God. Which one precedes the other?
From the bible we can see the example from many giants of faith that when they encountered God in their life, what the first thing they remembered is that they are totally depraved, they are totally wicked, a sinful creature, not even a single thing can be compared to the glory, holiness of God that is declared through his revelation.

So there Calvin argued that by knowing God we know that we are sinful, and by knowing how wicked we are, we can know God in a fuller way. That in the end he states that the first knowledge should precedes the latter.

When we see ourselves sometimes we see a very perfect creature are here. We try to elevate our pride, ego, dignity that we are the one. And even the worse is that we always compare that with the other, and usually we see the other are even worse than us. If compare the other and think that we are better in any ways.

The truth comes out when we try look upward to the sun. Our eyes are blurred and know we start to see our surrounding not so clear as before. That is what will happen if we try to compare ourselves with God.

We sometimes do not realize that there exists the one who ontologically is holy, just, righteous. We sometimes feel satisfied by our condition and forget the truth. We neglect God. By that we will never ever know him. And the worst of all that we will never ever know ourselves.

When we know that we are totally wicked when we see ourselves, we are compelled to look upward to God and by that we can know him in the true way as by his grace we will be given the salvation.