We have been tasked with knowing God. Jesus even ties it to our salvation. Actually, he says it equates to our salvation. In John 17:3, he says, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” We cannot respond to God the way he wants unless we know him. To know God, you need to encounter him in some way. Everyone you know, you have spent time with and learned things about them, right? This is how we get to know people. So how do we encounter or get to know God?
Yes, the fast Sunday school answer is scripture and prayer. They are obviously integral to this process, but I want us to look beyond the surface answer for a moment. There are many that read scripture and pray and do not know God. Jesus charges the religious leaders of his time on earth with this sad reality. They searched the scripture and prayed on street corners, but they didn’t know God. So, it must go beyond that.
The answer is not what process or spiritual discipline allows us to know God, but instead the answer is a person.
In John 1:18 of the CSB, it says, “No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.”
In the ESV it says, “he made him known,” and in the KJV it says, “hath declared him.”
The idea is that Jesus shows us God. He allows us to encounter God through him. He bridges that gap for us. We can’t see God because he is spirit; meaning he exists beyond our dimensional restraints. Scripture says we couldn’t even survive seeing the fullness of God’s glory in our flesh.
We need to know God. To know God, we need to see him and experience him to understand his nature and what he is about. Jesus is the one who reveals the nature of God to us.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. - Colossians 1:15
Jesus is God made visible to us. He tells us that “nobody comes to the father except through me.” He is our connection to God.
Application: We should pour over the words, the attitudes, the emotions, the teachings, the dispositions, the whole life of Christ. The more we know Christ the more we know God, and as Jesus tells us, knowing God and knowing Jesus is eternal life.
From Your Fellow Servant,
Steven McFadden
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