Knowing God is a personal matter

Knowing God is a personal matter

Being a Christian for 15 years now, I sometimes ponder on how much I really know about the God whom I believe and worship. I wonder if the length of time I have been to church speaks volumes of how much I know about him.

In many occasions, when I am faced with mundane troubles in my Christian walk. It is so easy to quote a popular bible verse or a Sunday message we've heard in church that would soothe our troubles. And when I do that, it makes me feel like I know God and how he works in my circumstances. It is just like having these second-hand ideas on how to build a lego just by looking at the back of its cardboard box or watching the video tutorial.

But what about when I find myself in a situation I was never into? Will I be able to recognize God in those places?

It is clear that knowing God is more complex than "knowing" another person.

But really, what are we talking about when we use the phrase knowing God?

Here are some essential points that I have extracted from J.I. Packer's book "Knowing God".

Knowing God is a personal dealing,

as is all direct acquaintance with personal beings. Knowing God is more than knowing about him; it is a matter of dealing with him as he opens up to you, and being dealt with by him as he takes knowledge of you.

Knowing about him is a necessary precondition of trusting in him (“How could they have faith in one they had never heard of?” [Rom 10:14 NEB]), but the width of our knowledge about him is no gauge of the depth of our knowledge of him.

John Owen and John Calvin knew more theology than John Bunyan or Billy Bray, but who would deny that the latter pair knew their God every bit as well asthe former? (All four, of course, were beavers for the Bible, which counts for far more anyway than a formal theological training.) If the decisive factor was

notional correctness, then obviously the most learned biblical scholars wouldknow God better than anyone else.

But it is not; you can have all the right notions in your head without ever tasting in your heart the realities to which they refer;

and a simple Bible reader and sermon hearer who is full of the Holy Spirit will develop a far deeper acquaintance with his God and Savior than a more learned scholar who is content with being theologically correct.

The reason is that the former will deal with God regarding the practical application of truth to his life, whereas the latter will not.

Knowing God is a matter of personal involvement—mind, will and feeling

It would not, indeed, be a fully personal relationship otherwise. To get to know another person, you have to commit yourself to his company and interests, and be ready to identify yourself with his concerns. Without this, your relationship with him can only be superficial and flavorless.

“Taste and see that the LORD is good,” says the psalmist (Ps 34:8).

To “taste” is, as we say, to “try” a mouthful of something, with a view to appreciating its flavor. A dish may look good, and be well recommended by the cook, but we do

not know its real quality till we have tasted it.

Similarly, we do not know another person’s real quality till we have “tasted” the experience of friendship. Friends are, so to speak, communicating flavors to

each other all the time, by sharing their attitudes both toward each other (think of people in love) and toward everything else that is of common concern.

As they thus open their hearts to each other by what they say and do, each “tastes” the quality of the other, for sorrow or for joy. They have identified themselves with, and so are personally and emotionally involved in, each other’s concerns.

They feel for each other, as well as thinking of each other. This is an essential aspect of the knowledge which friends have of each other; and the same applies to the Christian’s knowledge of God, which, as we have seen, is itself a relationship between friends.

Now this, so far as it goes, is an illustration of what it means to know God. Well might God say through Jeremiah, “Let him that glories glory in this, that he

understands and knows me”

—for knowing God is a relationship calculated to thrill a person’s heart.

What happens is that the almighty Creator, the Lord of hosts, the great God before whom the nations are as a drop in a bucket, comes to you and begins to talk to you through the words and truths of Holy Scripture. Perhaps you have been acquainted with the Bible and Christian truth for many years, and it has meant little to you; but one day you wake up to the fact that God is actually speaking to you—you!—through the biblical message.

As you listen to what God is saying, you find yourself brought very low; for God talks to you about your sin, and guilt, and weakness, and blindness, and folly, and compels you to judge yourself hopeless and helpless, and to cry out for forgiveness.

But this is not all. You come to realize as you listen that God is actually opening his heart to you, making friends with you and enlisting you as a colleague—in Barth’s phrase, a covenant partner. It is a staggering thing, but it is true—the relationship in which sinful human beings know God is one in which God, so to speak, takes them onto his staff, to be henceforth his fellow workers (see 1 Cor 3:9) and personal friends.

The action of God in taking Joseph from prison to become Pharaoh’s prime minister is a picture of what he does to every Christian: from being Satan’s prisoner, you find yourself transferred to a position of trust in the service of God.

At once life is transformed. Whether being a servant is a matter for shame or for pride depends on whose servant one is.

Many have said what pride they felt in rendering personal service to Sir Winston Churchill during World War II. How much more should it be a matter of pride and glorying to know and serve the Lord of heaven and earth!