Knowing God

‘And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent’ (John 17:3).

God is not a myth that was created by man, but he is the author of life who created man, and both the seen and unseen world (for man’s benefit). He is more real than the word real. His greatest passion is to reveal Himself to man and commune with him. In the first sentence in the Bible He reveals himself to man; ‘In the beginning God’ (Gen 1:1). Knowing Him goes beyond intellectual knowledge; it is a personal spiritual journey. To Know Him is to understand His ways or character, how He thinks, His acts, His principles and His requirements for man (Psalm 103:7). He is a Spirit and the natural mind cannot comprehend His ways, it takes love for Him, revealed in a pursuit of Him, to know Him. As an individual who loves God, hungers for Him and pursues Him with all his heart, his spirit man is quickened and enlightened about God.

God can be known in a personal way. Enoch walked with Him until he was taken up (Gen 5:24). Moses was declared to be a friend of God. He prayed that he wanted to know God more, even after God spoke with him face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. David was so hungry for God that his prayer was, ‘Oh God you are my God and earnestly I seek you’ (Psalm 63:1), he also said ‘my soul is consumed with a longing for your law’ (Psalm 119:20), no wonder he was a man after God’s own heart. God has revealed Himself to men all throughout history; today He is still revealing himself to men.

The critical question is how can one know God? In Exodus 33:13 Moses said this prayer to God, ‘If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you’. From this scripture the Clear lesson is that, we know God through the teaching of His word. Secondly, we know God through a desperate desire and a pursuit of Him through prayer. Paul the Apostle prayed, that he may ‘know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death’ (Phil 3:10). Those who seek Him and search for Him with all their hearts find Him, so your greatest desire should be to know Him. Jesus said that, ‘blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’. In essence He was saying that there are some mysteries or hidden Keys in the Kingdom of God that lead to eternal life, which every believer needs to Know, and it is your duty as an individual to Search for understanding into those issues. ‘It is the glory of God to conceal a matter but the glory of kings to search out a matter (Prov 25:2). Also, God reveals Himself through all His creation, especially through man who is created in His image (Psalm 19:1).

Paul taught in 2 Cor 3:18 that as we seek God, we see and reflect His glory. And the Lord who is the Spirit, makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image, from one level of glory to another level of glory. Some of us have stayed at one level of glory for far too long and Spiritual complacency is killing us. If there has ever been a time that you should be hungry for God’s word, it is now. The dangers of not knowing God are countless. In Hosea 4:6, God said to the people of Israel, ‘my people perish for lack of knowledge’; this was the indictment or condemnation delivered by Hosea the prophet of mercy to the people of God, that they were ignorant of the things of God. He meant that the thing that is going to let the people of God perish was not the strength of the philistines, Syrians or the Babylonians but their ignorance of the WORD of God. May you not perish for not knowing God. Knowing God in a personal relationship is the only way to a fulfilled and eternal life. The way to eternal life is to know Him through Jesus His son. The next lesson of study is ‘The benefits of Knowing God’.