knowing God

It is good to fellowship with other believers. Their words show that they see different aspects of the Christian faith than we do, and that little bit of knowledge adds to our own. Sometimes, though, we find ourselves listening to someone who knows God. They may not know Him in His entirety, but truly they have walked and talked with our Lord, and their words vibrate with Life itself.

I asked the Lord what makes the difference between the people who seem to know Him, and the believers who do not. He told me that some people know about Him, and others know Him. To know Him we must follow Him. It’s about submission, which becomes evident in the laying of our lives down. When we lay down our will, then we begin to know God.

God will bring circumstances into our lives that crucify us. This isn’t because He despises our nature; it is so that we will know Him as we walk with Him through the trials. The apostle Paul was a person who had a lot of knowledge about God. But one day he actually met Jesus, the Son of God. From that day on Jesus was in Paul’s life so that he could know Him. Many knew about Jesus, but Paul’s deepest desire was to actually know Jesus. He wrote to the Philippians “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings . . . “ (Phil 3:10-11). The key is to walk with Jesus in the trials appointed to our lives. It is there that we will get to know Him.

I have heard it said that no one can know God. Yet Jeremiah writes “let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord . . . “ (Jer 9:24a). We have the Spirit of the living God living within us. Yes we can know Him, if we will yield our will over to Him. Not like a robot who has no choice, but as a son or daughter who follows and submits to their Father.

What interferes with the process of submission in our walk with the Lord? First we have a struggle with our will, for we do not want pain and suffering in our lives. But one of the things that undermines our submission the most is the teachings of well-meaning Christians who write about the perfect pain-free life which they imagine God wants for all of us. These teaches devise plans and methods whereby we can live our lives perfectly. Their take-home message is that any pain and suffering we have must be from living wrong, or from sin. Instead of helping the man in trial to build a relationship with Jesus, they put a stumbling block of blame between the man and his God, building instead a relationship with the author. If we believe these perfect-life teachers we become dependent on their writings and measure our faith by how many trials we can eliminate from our lives. The fruit, therefore, is a lack of depth of character personally and a lack of knowing God, personally.

Our trials work character in us because we must try Something that we’ve never needed before in order to get through them. We must seek Someone who has traveled the road before us. That Someone knows how to get through the trials. Our dependency on Him, and submission to Him during our trials brings with it the sweet fruit of knowing God, the Someone who has the Something we need most.

Paul got to know Jesus’ Life from both sides of the cross; the Power of His resurrection, and the Fellowship of His sufferings. Before we can have power in our lives we must have the fellowship. Jesus asked His disciples “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” (Mt 20:22b). Indeed, it was a cup of suffering He would share with them after His resurrection. It held pain and suffering, yet power and resurrection were also in the cup. Today we are asked the same question; can we drink the cup of Jesus? Will we love our lives so much that knowledge about God is sufficient, just as long as He leaves our lives alone? Or will we take His cup, laying our lives down so that we may know Him? “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.” (Phil 3:8). Amen.