Knowing God

Knowing God


I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. Jeremiah 24:7 NIV

I read an article about an intelligent, beautiful and famous actress. When asked about religion she said, "I am an agnostic, even though I respect and am interested in all religions. If there's something I believe in, it's a mysterious energy; the one that fills the oceans during tides, the one that unites nature and beings." She believes in“energy” that inexplicably unites life... I remember speaking to a woman about God. I made a comment akin to the idea that we get to know God intimately because of Christ. She responded by literally yelling at me, "That's blasphemous! You can't know God! It is impossible to know him!"

Do you think that God would give up His son just so He could purposefully remain shrouded in mystery? I have a hard time accepting that God is cloaked, only revealing Himself as a "mysterious energy". I think that the opposite is true. Not only is God showing His true identity, but also He intends for us to know Him fully and unequivocally. I am not speaking of religion and rules. I am speaking of intimacy and truth. Why else would so many people in the Bible give God nicknames? Some called Him “Healer” and others called Him “Redeemer”. And yet many others called Him Lord. You can’t call God these names if he is unknowable or a mysterious force of nature. God created everything in the universe to call attention to Himself (Romans1:20). God isn’t hiding, He wants (or maybe demands) to be known.

I think that knowing God is always first-person; you can’t know him through the experiences of others. Knowing God is impossible apart from Jesus; for He is God incarnate. And I think that God will slip through your fingers without reading the Bible, God’s primary means of communicating with us. Without God’s Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth, without Christ to bridge the gap, it is impossible to know the one true and living God.