How Can I Really Know God?

How can a person really get to know God? Is it even possible?

To Know God

One way we can know God is to read His Word. If you wanted to know what a person is like and they sent you an autobiography of themselves, you’d simply have to open the book and read it to know that person better and what they’re like. In the same way, we can know God by the reading of His Word. Since the Bible is the inspired Word of God, we can read all about God, but it’s not possible for us to ever know Him comprehensively because the finite (us) can never know the infinite (God) but we can know some things about Him. In other words, we can’t know everything about God but we can know some things about Him. Jesus said in John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” God is knowable but only through Jesus Christ, the Son of God since Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:15). The Son knows the Father perfectly and so the more we know (and read) about Jesus, the more we know about God and Who he is and what He is like and what He desires for us to do.

Seeing Jesus is Seeing God

I never knew my grandfather well at all. I had to get to know him through hearing others talk about him. They could tell me things about him that I’d ever know because they were with him but even though I can know more about him, I couldn’t really know my grandfather thoroughly without being around him and talking to him. When Philip asked Jesus “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us. Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’” (John 14:8-9). Jesus’ point is that He is the visible image and likeness of the invisible God in heaven. If you saw Jesus then you’d see the Father in the sense that Jesus is God just as the Father is God and to know Jesus is to know God the Father; at least as much as humanly possible.

Israel Knowing God

When God rescued Israel out of the bondage of Egyptian slavery, He said “I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God” (Ex 29:45-46). God would have never said that “they shall know that I am the Lord their God” if He was not knowable. The reason He brought them out of Egypt was so that He “might dwell among them” to know that He is “the Lord their God” so that they could have a relationship with Him. God would not seek to be known and then not leave them a way to know Him.

God is Knowable

Solomon certainly knew God as He spoke to Solomon on several occasions and so Solomon wrote that “For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD” (Prov 8:35) so by all means, He is knowable. Paul wrote that we are “predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (Rom 8:29) but for those who reject Jesus, it is because “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2nd Cor 4:4).

The Apostle John on Knowing God

The Apostle John spoke more about “knowing God” than any other author in the New Testament and so he wrote; “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (1st John 3:1). One of the tests of really knowing God is that they hear and obey what the Word of God tells them for “Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error” (1st John 4:6) and “whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1st John 4:7) but “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1st John 4:8).

Does Jesus Know You?

A lot of people who never crack open a Bible, never attend church, and live like the world claim to know Jesus but is it more important to know Jesus or to be known by Jesus? Remember, the demons were the first to acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God and they knew Jesus was God but that didn’t mean they could be saved by knowing Him or that was a saving relationship. Jesus warns in Matthew 7:21-23 that “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name.’” What does Jesus say? “then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matt 7:23). It doesn’t say that Jesus sort of knew them or that He knew them fairly well or that He knew you up to a point. He will say “depart from me” because “I never knew you.” The point is, it’s not rather we know Jesus but that He knows us that is crucial. Jesus knows His own sheep’s voice as He said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27) but we must be known by the Great Shepherd in order to be considered part of His little flock.

Conclusion

God wants us to have a saving relationship with Him but it must come through Jesus Christ (John 6:44). The Apostle John writes about how we can know for sure that we know God: “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments” (1st John 5:2). If you say you know Christ, congratulations, you’ve just qualified to be a demon as James writes, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder” (James 2:19).

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.