How do I get to know God?
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How do I get to know God?
— Matt Edmundson
Every week I receive messages from folks with questions about faith, God and how to reconcile life and God. I love those messages, and occasionally, some trends pop up - questions that get asked multiple times. And recently, the questions that appear the most are:
How do I get to know God? or
How do I get to know about God? or
How do I experience God? or
How do I encounter God?
They are all great questions - and they are questions that you ask if you are just curious about Christ or if you have been walking with him for 30+ years. It's a drive that I think we all have within us.
It makes sense when you think about it. I have been married for over 24 years. Next year we celebrate the big 2-5. Go, team Edmo! And one of the things that keeps a marriage strong is the desire to know more and more about your spouse. When we started dating, we wanted to know about each other. And we still do because there are still things to learn. Yes, we know each other very well, but there is still more about Sharon to learn. And if that is true with my spouse, how much more with God?
Can I get to know God?
So, is God knowable? In Christianity - we would say He is and that the Christian life is a personal relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ, which is quite a significant claim when you think about it.
And we say that because of what it says in God's Word, the Bible. As an example, God's Word records a wonderful prayer that Jesus prays, in which he says:
“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
Wow! Our Lord tells us that eternal life is when we know God and Christ. That's a huge revelation - that the unknowable God not only becomes knowable but that that is eternal life.
The New Testament contains letters to various churches written by The Apostle Paul. And to the Phillipian church, he wrote about the purpose and calling of his life. And he said this:
“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death...”
Paul was driven by a desire to know Christ and to know Him personally, to be intimately acquainted with Him, and to know the deep things of God. It was his determined purpose.
So the Bible tells us that we can know God, that knowing God is not only possible but is a clear driving force of the life of a Christian. In other words, God wants to be known. And that's why I think that knowing God is a drive that is deep within us.
Tim Keller, a leading American theologian, said,
"Our desire for personal knowledge of God is strong, but we usually fail to recognise that desire for what it is."
— Tim Keller
In other words, there is a drive within us to know God, but we might not always recognise it as such. That search for meaning, purpose and identity, even the desire to know yourself, I believe, is all wrapped up in the drive to know God. And this desire can be directed into all kinds of excess that ultimately aren't helpful and leave us unfulfilled - whether that be our career, our kids, our pursuit of pleasure, or even the right to bear arms.
The journey of knowing God
Directing our desire to know God actually towards God, then, becomes the key - and to get that right, we must realise that knowing anyone, including God, is a journey and not an event.
"Because God can never be fully known, those who seek to know God should be deeply humbled in the process, realising that they will always have more to learn."
— Erik Thoennes, Professor of Theology
So what is this process? What is this journey? To answer that, I want to look at what happened when Jesus lived and see the journey that people took then and then ask what we can learn from that.
The Crowd
“Then Jesus made a circuit of all the towns and villages. He taught in their meeting places, reported kingdom news, and healed their diseased bodies, healed their bruised and hurt lives. When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd.”
Not everyone from the towns and villages would gather in the Crowds. Not everyone was ready to experience Jesus. But for some, they would have been intrigued by Jesus - which is the starting point for all of us. They wanted to hear His words, see His deeds, and maybe, just maybe, experience Him for themselves. It was in those Crowds that many people started their journey with Jesus. And like those in the Crowd, we too gather because we are curious about Christ. It might be our first time; it might be our 20th time here. For some of us, we may be at the back of the Crowd; for others, right in the middle of it - and that's OK.
So what can we learn from this? Well, it is a good thing to be intrigued by Jesus, and we should make time to hear His words, see His deeds and experience Christ for ourselves.
Hear His Words
So how do we hear His words? You get into Scripture. And the good news is that these days you don't have to wait for someone to come to your town or village to tell you! You can easily get hold of a Bible online or use free apps like YouVersion. I would start by reading the gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They tell the story of Jesus and we can read the words that He said - and they are life-giving.
You can also join an actual crowd and head to church or join a Livestream, like ours, or subscribe to a podcast, like ours, or read articles and books about being a Christian. There are tools like the Alpha course which help you explore the Christian faith.
See His Deeds
Getting involved in a church, whether online like Crowd or in person like your local church, is also a great way to see His deeds - as you see God work through other people.
Experience Him for yourself
But you also want to experience God yourself. You want to encounter Him. And the easiest way, for me, is through prayer. The great thing about prayer is that you don't need a priest to do it for you - you can pray to God yourself right now. It doesn't matter if you even consider yourself a Christian - you can still pray. Prayer is the best way to see His deeds and even experience Him.
Hearing His words, seeing His deeds and encountering a very real God becomes the backbone of our Christian life. It is not a one-time event, but it is part of the order of God's creation; it is a life of fellowship with God, a relationship with Him; it is part of the divine nature and everlasting life. And boy, is it glorious.
The Road
“Now Jesus and His disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi; and on the road He asked His disciples, saying to them, “Who do men say that I am?””
When Jesus had finished His ministry - the crowds would disperse. Some would go home thinking He was crazy. Some wanted to know when He was next in town. Others, though, decided to walk with Jesus wherever Jesus was going.
So what can we learn from this?
Firstly, to walk with someone, you have to walk at their pace. To walk with Jesus, what the Bible calls discipleship, is often at a slower pace than you would think - especially in our crazy busy western culture. As we walk with Christ, we learn to live life at His pace.
Secondly, when we read about those that walked with Christ, we see that this is a place where conversation happens. It's a place where questions are asked and answered. And they are usually questions centred around who Jesus is and who He made us to be.
I talk to Jesus about my questions, and as I walk with Him, I get better at hearing His voice and understanding the infinite ways He communicates. I also talk to the other disciples that are with me and get their thoughts and opinions on the matter. We learn together, and we grow together. Christianity is not a solo sport. It's a Crowd sport. Its life lived in community, at His pace, with other people, keeping Jesus at the centre of all that we do.
The Private Place
Often in the gospels, we see Jesus go from the Crowd to the Road, to the Private Place -
“The apostles returned from their mission and gathered around Jesus and told him everything they had done and taught. There was such a swirl of activity around Jesus, with so many people coming and going, that they were unable to even eat a meal. So Jesus said to his disciples, “Come, let’s take a break and find a secluded place where you can rest a while.””
The private place is secluded, free from interruption - and importantly - a place of rest. As I have grown in my knowledge of God, like many others, I have found that Christ has taught me more and more about rest. It's what Jack talked about a few weeks ago when we looked at Sabbath and Rest. These are times of rest and sabbath, a time for God. They are secluded and very special moments. It's in these places that God tells you about the deep and hidden things.
Creating these private places is intentional, and it is important for our souls. One famous story about the private place, which we will look at in much more detail in our upcoming Origin series, is the story of the Upper Room. Here there were a small group of people, secluded and worshipping and praying. And in that place, the Holy Spirit came and did something that He had never done before. And everyone in that room came out changed. In our private places, we worship and pray, and we are changed by the Holy Spirit.
The Mountain
And then finally, we see in the gospels Jesus would often go to the mountain by himself. These are very definite alone times with God. Here He would pray for a long time. It is here that He would reaffirm the mission, He would be refreshed, and He would be recharged.
In our busy busy lives, it is the private place and the mountain that become the hardest places to go to, yet in our walk with Christ, in our quest to get to know Him more and more, they are an essential part. They didn't happen every day, but they did happen. Creating those zones and spaces of extended time with God, free from distraction but with an aim to learn more about Him is life-giving and essential for our souls and our mission.
Summary
The disciples would regularly find themselves in all of these places, four unique zones where they learned more about God. We can learn from that; we can learn to intentionally create these places in our lives, the Crowd, the Road, the Private Place and the Mountain.
Because God can be known.
It is one of the unique tenets of Christianity - that we can begin to know God, an infinite being, in real and personal ways. Knowing Him is not a one-time event, but it is a journey, a road that we must walk with Him each and every day, and on that journey, there will be specific places, private places, where we are changed by Him.
My experience is that knowing Him is not a linear path. You don't go from A to B. It's more like a ball of wire jumbled together. It's complex, with twists and turns that you weren't expecting. It's also not that easy. There are decisions that you have to make that ultimately cost you something. And if I am honest, I think that is the way that it should be. Any good relationship requires an investment, a cost. It's one of the things that makes it great. And it is worth it because there is nothing that I can give to God that He doesn't give back in a much bigger way.
Can you know God? Yes, you can. The God who knows you can be known. And that journey can lead to great adventures and miraculous things. And it doesn't matter if you have been a Christian for one minute or a hundred years; there is still more to learn about God, more adventures to be had.
So my prayer for you, and for me - is that we would know Him. Paul put it this way, when writing to the Ephesians, and I echo this prayer for all of us:
“I couldn’t stop thanking God for you—every time I prayed, I’d think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for Christians, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!”
CONVERSATION STREET
With: Matt Edmundson & John Farrington
What is Conversation Street?
Conversation Street is part of our live stream, where the hosts (in this case, Matt & John) chat through Matt's talk and answer questions that were sent in through the live stream. You can watch the conversation in the video, it starts at 29 min 32 seconds into the live stream, or you can go straight there by clicking here. This week’s questions and topics of conversation are:
How do you get to know God?
What is the importance of church & community in your journey of getting to know God?
How do you bring intentionality in your walk with God?
More Bible Verses On Knowing God
Proverbs 8:17 - I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.
Jeremiah 31:33,34 - “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
Jeremiah 29:11-13 - For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
1 John 4:6-7 - We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
1 John 3:6 - No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
Hebrews 4:12 - For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Psalm 100:3 - Know that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
1 John 2:3 - By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.
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