How to Know and Recognize God and the Way He Works

The million-dollar dilemma

Christian life is one of learning to know God and recognize Him in our lives. It is growing to grasp the way He works in our life, in our family, in our church, and in our world. Following Christ and intuitively coming to understand the ways He works with us, in us, and around us is true growth in maturity. A disciple of Christ often wrestles with paradoxes that defy logic and sense, Romans 12:1 – present your bodies as living sacrifices – is a perfect example. How can a sacrifice be alive when its very meaning is to give up your life! John 17:3, where Jesus talks about eternal life is all about knowing Him, is another. We note that the wisdom of God must be accepted per se rather than being explained or questioned.

Jesus defines eternal life as getting to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. The Contemporary English Version translates this as “Eternal life is to know you, the only true God, and to know Jesus Christ, the one you sent.” As believers of Christ, we are eagerly waiting for eternal life where death has no fear for us since it has no hold for us. According to this passage, eternal life begins even here and now, even though it is also a fact for the future.

This is why Apostle Paul declares “I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things…I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

We inherit and acquire eternal life daily as we begin to know, grasp, and try to fathom Him, His wonders, His workings, and His ways. No wonder II Corinthians 4:16-18 notes: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

The goal of our walk of faith and life in Christ is getting to know Him, fully and completely. We acquire this knowledge through our daily interactions with Him in every sphere of life.

The experience and outcome

On Sunday, I heard one of my brothers preach from John chapters 20 and 21. Having moved away, I was thrilled to see him and hear him share the Word. My joy expanded all the more when I received new insights from his sermons.  I had a glimpse of three stages or phases of growth in knowing God and His outworking.

Sharing and sermons that go beyond comfort, open inga window into knowing God are soul-enriching. Our hearts burn just as those of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus as a flame of intelligence lights up our spirit. Our soul thrills as our mind is illumined by a divine sighting. We soar from the earthy to the heavenly, being uplifted from the mundane to the spiritual realms.

Worship that lifts you to the throne, and  Word that makes you hear the Spirit are game changers of life. Soaked in God’s presence and heaven’s environment, you’re strengthened in the inner man. Empowered by His glory  and grace thus, you’re ready to face the day. You decide and determine to live a holy life all through the week, as His beloved!

Here is the outcome of that God encounter through His Word and Spirit!

Learning to know Him at the base 

In John 20:21-28, after His resurrection, Jesus met with His disciples, cowering behind closed doors in fear. Thomas, who was absent, refuses to believe He is alive, when told of His appearing. He declares that he would believe only when he sees and feels the wounds of Christ. A week later, Jesus appears again when Thomas is present and grants his wish. Thomas fall to his knees and declare Him, Lord and God. Thomas came to know and accept Him as Lord and God when He saw physical evidence of His person.

God graciously shows Himself to us in very evident ways in the early days of knowing Him. In the infant stages of our faith, we see immediate answers to prayer.  Miraculous deliverances and healings, instant provision for needs, seem the order of the day. We see His power at work, and feel His touch in our weaknesses and infirmity. Jumping for joy , we recognize God in the small and big happenings of our lives. Trusting Him seems to come easy,and our faith grows by leaps and bounds. We run around witnessing to His goodness, eager to declare His faithfulness to all. Following Christ doesn’t seem hard and life becomes an adventure. We recognize the answers of God and evidences of His presence in our daily lives. All around us, God’s power seems exhibited, and God seems very near. He appears to be quick to hear, and soon to reply!

God in His grace does this to bolster our faith and encourage us in our walk of faith. He woos us to Himself with cords of love. Since He knows our frame, as the Psalmist says, He is gentle with us. As lambs who need His touch and nearness, He leads us carefully. He gives us a sense of security and protection, and we feel cherished.

Thus, we come to the first stage of knowing Him:

1. Learning to know and recognize Him by what He does

If you are in this stage of life, rejoice in your season. Enjoy the evidences of His love for you, and care for you. You are learning to know and recognize Him. You’re laying up a foundation for the next stage of your relationship with Him. God graciously grants this since everything is still new to you. He tempers and cushions your ardent faith by His evident concern for you.

To see about the second stage of knowing Him, we must look to John 21:1-14. In this chapter, we see Jesus meeting with His disciples for the third time at the seashore. His disciples have gone back to fishing, probably since they either didn’t know what to do or forgot His call to be fishers of men. Returning from a fruitless night of fishing, they encounter Him as He calls to them from the shore. He instructs them to cast the net on the right side of the boat, which they immediately do. They were obviously near the shore since they could hear Jesus’ voice. They wouldn’t be able to see Him clearly in the early morning mist.

As experienced fishermen, they know fish are found in the center of the sea. That is where they had spent the whole night. Yet, at once they hear and obey Him immediately and implicitly, without any resistance. John significantly records the number and size of the fishes to be 153 big fishes. Nobody would expect to get a catch of this size and number so close to the shore. John at once recognizes and identifies Him, since a similar thing happened when He first called them to be fishers of men. Peter then jumps off the boat to meet Jesus, just as he did before –  following at His feet at the miraculous draught of fishes.

Jesus knew how to catch their attention and restore them to the task He had chosen them for.

Traversing to the next level

Oftentimes in our lives, we go through circumstances that make us feel that God has abandoned us. Everything that we believed in, everything we had invested in, is gone. All that we sacrificed for, is destroyed or dismantled. Things were going smoothly, and our hope and future looked secure. Then, suddenly God rips apart the very fabric of our lives,  and we wonder why. Did we make a mistake, or commit some sin? Have we offended or hurt Him and so targeted by Him? We feel lost, we flounder, and wander into old paths. Not sure what to do, we feel helpless as well as hopeless. Feeling cheated, our dreams destroyed, we feel that very existence is a question mark.

God never abandons us, but always pruning, molding, and reshaping us into His image. He is training us to know Him at another level, by His voice and by His word, and not by sight. Seeking to mature us, He causes us to grow to know Him in a new way. He adds another dimension to our relationship. He doesn’t want us to know Him only by what what we see Him do or by what we feel by His touch.

2. Learning to know and recognize Him by what He says

His desire is that we live by every word that  proceeds out of His mouth. He wants us to recognize Him in a fresh new as we obey Him. Our eyes are opened to identify Him through His instructions to us when we just submit to His decrees. We learn to see Him, and  to have God sightings. Not by physical evidences of His presence, but by obedience and submission. He ensures that we cease to depend on our eyes and our sensory inputs.  Teaching and training us, He enables us to pinpoint Him out by the voice of His words. His sound comes to us through His written Word, read and spoken. His word echoes to us through the preaching and teaching of elders and leaders.

God is not about experiences and goosebumps, though He does pamper us with them in our infancy. He is about our transformation and our redemption from sin. We need to conform to His image, and not to the patterns and purposes of this world or its times. So, He shapes and molds us to hear and recognize Him by His Word. We become very sensitive to Him as we obey Him.

Moving to Maturity in Knowing Him

He wants us to not be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ (Ephesians 4:14-16). We need to grow up in Him to become mature and committed contributors in the Body of Christ, not consumers or commentators.

His plan for the gospel to reach the ends of the earth and His Kingdom to be established here must be fulfilled. He needs us to be participators and not spectators. For this He trains us to follow His voice, and be guided by His Word. We must grow up to be adults who are able to recognize Him. Even amidst failures and negative circumstances, we must learn to follow Him. His call in our lives, and His purposes for our days, must be fulfilled.

3. Learning to identify Him by knowing Who He is

In John 20:29 Jesus makes a profound statement when Thomas confesses His acceptance of Him. Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” This is the third stage of growing in maturity of knowing and recognizing the Lord and His works – to not have any physical input but yet to believe in Him.

Years ago I read an article of a man who saw a vision of three women praying and Jesus interacting with each one. The Lord went to the first woman, and spoke to her, touch her with His hand, comforted her, and spent time with her. The second woman also got the same things but in a lesser fashion and way. The Lord just passed by the third woman, and didn’t even seem to acknowledge her as though blind to her. The man’s reaction and thoughts to himself was that how much the Lord must love the first one to give her such evidences of care and comfort, care lesser for the second woman, and nothing at all for the third woman. He thought the Lord was not pleased with her, and so he was ignoring her.

Jesus corrected His misconception, and told him that the man did not understand His thoughts or grasp His ways. Jesus told the man that, the first woman needed much of His care since she was new to the faith, and hence, needed much encouragement. the second woman had grown some more and so, with little comforting she would be okay and carry on her life. The Lord spoke with joy and exultation about the third woman, telling the man that He and she had perfect understanding of one another. She would never mind if there was no direct evidence of His care, for she trusted Him to the utmost. Jesus said that He was grooming for great things, and so, was pruning her, refining her, and maturing her to the highest responsibilities.

The man saw Jesus look with such overwhelming love and pride at her relationship with Him that didn’t even need anything. She had such faith and extreme love for Him that He could not do anything that would bring her any distress or discouragement. As I read this, my heart resonated within me at this great degree of trust God could have in a person. Right then and there, I spoke to the Lord and told Him that’s I wanted to be with Him, and He with me. I gave Him full room and permission to do as He would with me, and mold me to how He wanted me to be. My life bears witness to this longing within me that oftentimes I am a puzzle to many!

Growing up to next level of knowing Him

Psalm 103:7 points out that God showed His deeds to Israel but His ways to Moses, showing a distinction in how God related to Moses versus the Israelites. There is a difference here – God revealed His character and plans, to Moses, while He showed the Israelites His “acts,” or His works and deeds. Most people know Him only at the outward level as they recognize and acknowledge what He does, which is good. There are many who aren’t sensitive to God, and take His grace and goodness for granted. The Bible says that God makes the sun to shine, and the rain to pour on both the good and the bad. Psalm 19 also says that the heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and the sky shows His mercy, but the fool says in his heart there is no God (Psalm14:1).

This is indeed one level of faith and maturity, but not sufficient to know Him fully. If you are at this level, chances are that you will be offended when He doesn’t seem to answer your prayer or provide what you. Many people, both believers and non-believers, stumble when they don’t see evidences of His presence in their lives. They take umbrage at Him, and often sulk or throw tantrums like children, not realizing Who He is. If you have learnt to hear His voice, through the scriptures, through others, etc., you have progressed to another level of maturity. You know Him more than many others, but you still will be flummoxed if you don’t hear Him.

There may be days when the Lord seems to withdraw Himself, and often leave you to tend to yourself. If you are at the second stage of growth, then you will feel lost, and find yourself wandering around in a daze. All seems dark and misty, and you will feel either clueless, or lost or even abandoned. The Psalmist went through such periods, and wrote about these feelings in his writings. That’s why reading from the book of Psalms is very comforting during the time you learn more about relating to Him, and go to the next level of knowing Him.

Being anchored in His character

There is yet another level that we all need to grow to, level up to, and live by – that of relating to Him based on Who He is, His character. God is yesterday, today, and forever the same. We rest on the immutability and incorruptibility of His nature. No one or nothing can ever alter or modify Who He is. This is the strong anchor for our souls, and the rock on which we stand.

Even when we can’t see or feel Him or even heat Him, we can rest in this incorruptible nature of His character. He will never ever change, either in His love for us or His goodness towards us. The Bible says that the plans He has for us is only for our good, and that He works everything together for our God. Again, God cannot do evil nor be tempted by evil. He cannot be bribed or cajoled to do wrong, for He is always good.

So, when darkness seems to surround us, when all seems lost, and there seems to be no hope, we still can rest in Him. Romans 4 beautifully declares that Abraham believed in hope against hope – for a son. Even when he was asked to sacrifice the very one who was his promised seed, he did for he knew his God!

Do you really know Him

Our life pursuit should be to know Him, and to live in this world by the assurance of knowing Who He is. Depending only on what we see of His acts will  not anchor us. When we go by what we feel, we will be disappointed. We will live in constant trepidation when we do not really know Him or understand His nature. Living in our strength, we will be tossed around and not be in rest.

The written Word of God that He has given to us showcases His character and His nature. The Bible alone gives us the clear picture and idea of Who He is. Saturate and soak yourselves in His Word, so that your soul is steeped in His nature. They more you know Him, and grasp Who He is through the study of His word, the more you will recognize Him. The more you know Him, the more you will not be tossed here and there by anything or anyone. You will be as stable as a rock since you’re built on the Rock of Ages

There is nothing so great as knowing Him, and nothing as satisfying as to live by that knowledge of Him, His ways, and His thoughts!