How Do We Come To Know God?

by Chris Simmons

Fellowship is a joint participation in a relationship. Relationships are built on knowledge. God wants to have fellowship and thus, a relationship, with each and every one of us and that requires knowledge. As our Creator, rest assured, God knows us; from every need we have (Matthew 6:8) to every thought in our heart (Psalms 44:21, “…He knows the secrets of the heart”). Indeed, God has “searched me and known me” and is “intimately acquainted with all my ways” (Psalms 139:1-6). But do we know Him? Are we intimately acquainted with all His ways? If we have any aspirations at all of eternal life and a hope of heaven, we must understand that blind obedience will not suffice and we must come to know Him so we can have fellowship with Him.

Our relationship and fellowship with God is personal. For example, Paul had a personal relationship with his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as he wrote of Jesus in Galatians 2:20, “…who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.” I can’t know God through my parents nor can I know Him through the elders or any preacher. I must know Him for myself and developing such a relationship has to be foremost in my life. God, through the prophet Jeremiah, tells us that the only thing in life worth glorying in is in knowing Him. “Thus says the Lord, ‘Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,’ declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 9:23-24). Paul understood the urgency of knowing His Lord and Savior and was willing to relinquish all that he had gained in life for such an opportunity. Philippians 3:7-10, “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” Is knowing God that important to us?

Paul also knew of and wrote of the consequences of not knowing God. He knew that eternal judgment and condemnation are not only for those who don’t obey but also for those who never bother to come to know God! Paul wrote in II Thessalonians 1:8-9, “dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.” Not all who obey the gospel do so out of knowledge of God and faith in Him and His word. Many do so simply to please or satisfy family or a spouse or any other number of selfish or temporal reasons. Obedience, without knowing God, is vain and not pleasing in the sight of God.

How do we then come to know God?

See what He made! For many, our knowledge of God begins when we look around at the marvelous creation of God that we live in. When we see what God made, we are expected to learn about God’s “eternal power” and His “divine nature” that is “clearly seen” through what He made (Romans 1:18-20). Perhaps we are seeking to learn about one of our family ancestors, would we not learn about them by looking at anything that they made with their hands such as a house or some furniture or clothing? Anything a person makes leads us to understand who they are and seeing and appreciating God’s creation should establish a solid foundation for truly knowing God. It’s interesting that in Acts 17:23-24, when Paul sought to teach the Athenians about the “unknown God,” he began by teaching them about what He created and that, in fact, He is the Creator of “the world and all things in it.” What He made declares His glory (Psalms 19:1) and fear and awe are to result from our knowledge of God through what He made (Psalms 33:6-9).

Read what He wrote! We can’t truly know what’s in someone’s heart and mind unless they choose to reveal it to us. Again, from a human perspective, if we were seeking to know another person, would we not turn to their autobiography or a diary or a journal to know who they are and what is in their heart? We cannot ever hope to know God as He would have us to know Him without diligently studying the words that He revealed to us. It’s the only way we can come to know what’s in the mind of God. Paul spoke of this in I Corinthians 2:10-13, “for to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.” God communicated and revealed His will directly to the apostle Paul who then wrote those things down so that we can also know Him and His will for us (Ephesians 3:3-5). God has revealed to us what we need so that we can come to a complete and adequate knowledge of Him and His will for us (Deuteronomy 29:29). His will has been revealed and made available to all of mankind. It is a revelation that has been “once for all delivered” (Jude 3), that is fully equipped to provide us with the “perfect” knowledge of God and His will (II Timothy 3:16-17; I Corinthians 13:9-10). To proclaim and teach that we can know God as we should without stressing and emphasizing the point that we must read what He had written is certain to result in misguided and lost souls.

Learn the names & titles by which God and His Son have chosen to reveal themselves. We have just completed a series of bulletin articles on the names for God and His Son Jesus Christ in both Old and New Testament scriptures. The purpose of those studies was to enable us to draw closer to Them by understanding the significance and meaning of the names and titles They chose to share with us. Human names, nicknames, titles and designations reveal a great deal about the people we meet in life and we often only share some of them with those that we want to draw closer to. We need to view God’s choice to reveal such names and titles to us as His gracious invitation to draw near unto Him (James 4:8).

Seek to be with Him. I think it’s safe to say that those of us who are married first sought to get to know our spouse and we did so by seeking to spend time with them in meaningful ways. We can only hope to grow in our knowledge of God by seeking to spend “quality time” with God throughout our lives. We do this by seeking Him in opportunities of worship which we must be in the “habit” of continually participating in (Hebrews 10:24-25). We are to do this by drawing “near with confidence to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16) through our continual and persistent prayers (I Thessalonians 5:17; Luke 18:1ff). Let us seek to come before His presence with thanksgiving (Psalms 95:1-2). If we wish to be successful in spending the time with Him and His word that we need to come to know Him, we will have to be successful in eliminating the distractions that get in the way. There will also be barriers to our coming to know Him that need to be “laid aside” (Colossians 3:8-10; Hebrews 12:1-2; Luke 10:40; 14:16-24).

Accept His invitation. Jesus has invited us to “come unto Me” (Matthew 11:28-30). Will we accept and will we not come to know Him when we do? Jesus has invited the “thirsty” to come to Him, “Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, “From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water”’” (John 7:37-38). It’s up to us to accept His invitation and come to know what He offers to man. It’s up to us to “draw near” to Him (James 4:7-8).

Finally, if we realize the need to know Him, we’ve simply got to follow Him. That means we have to be true disciples of Jesus Christ who both study Him and faithfully follow Him. We are not worthy of knowing Him if we are not willing to “take his cross and follow after Me” (Matthew 10:38; 16:24). Faithful following begets knowledge and knowledge begets more committed following (see John 10:4; 10:27; Philippians 3:10).