Knowing God or Knowing All About Him
May 20, 2010 by Bob Regnerus
One inconspicuous Sunday, visiting a church to watch my niece get baptized, I heard a message that changed my “walk” forever.
The man delivering the message on this day is not my pastor, but a pastor to our extended family. He is the pastor of a church where many of my aunts, uncles, and cousins attend, and has been a gift to the family during some extremely painful trials (tragic death of family members) and during times of joy (births and weddings).
Howard said one line that has rung in my head for over 4 years now.
“My prayer is that you would learn to Know God, rather than strive to Know More About Him”
As Howard pointed out, the goal of the Christian life should not be to read a book and be the foremost authority on who God is. Not that there is value in that, but if you only spend your time on this earth as a student of God, you will never know who he is, or have a chance to experience him in the embrace of a relationship.
I prayed that prayer in my heart with Howard on that Sunday, but I never knew the depth of that request until this past year. God has been answering that request in so many diverse ways ever since. Every season of my life since then has been like an onion, peeling back the layers of what this really means. I find myself not going a week without hearing that in my head, and asking God to keep bringing me to the place where I know Him better, and stop learning about him.
It would take years to explain to you what that has produced in my life, and the trials and tribulations that this prayer has produced. You’ve read along with me a little bit over the past year, but I can say with 100% assurance, that God heard that prayer and has been answering it ever since.
I love the way Darin Hufford makes the analogy (and I am severely paraphrasing here), “If one of my kids came in to my room and started asking me questions about what I was doing, what I like, what I was working on, etc., I’d be an abusive Father if I halted their questioning and handed them a book, and said – just read my book son, it has everything you need to know about me.” The book has value, it has truth, and it’s a resource to validate what God is saying in your life, but if you only strive to read and memorize the book, and never stop to speak and listen to the person that wrote it, you’d be missing out on a full and Spirit-led life.
My problem for most of my childhood and early adult life was that I knew the book backwards and forwards, but I never knew the person. I never heard the person who inspired it. I never stopped to listen to the person myself, instead relaying on pastors and teachers to speak for him. I’d speak to him in prayers, but I really never experienced the intamacy of that relationship where I truly felt he was listening to me.
Was I saved? Yes.
Was I a model Christian? Yes.
Did I teach and lead others according to the book? Yes.
Did I know the man that saved me? Not really.
Did I know the person I was serving? Not too well.
Did I truly experience and understand what I was teaching? Not as much as I once thought.
The past year has been a revelation to get to know him. To hear his voice at a deep level. To see him work and move in both the mundane and exhilarating experiences of life. To watch him operate in my life and the lives of those around me. To know his comfort during difficult trials. To hear him laugh and see him smile in the amazing joyful moments of life.
Maybe they were right. Life must begin at forty.
All I know is that the rest of my time here on earth, and my days in eternity will be about knowing him, not being overly concerned about theology, doctrine, or principles. It’s about a relationship and spending my time with him and those he surrounds me with. I want this for my wife, I want this for my daughters. I want this for my friends, but I cannot give it to them. God will not force himself on people – he might interrupt them and save them – but this is a choice we all have to make. An invitation to deep relationship.
It saddens me that there are people who go to church each Sunday and read the Bible regularly, but have no sense of the daily, moment by moment relationship. Yeah, they are saved. But they are really missing the gospel in it’s fullness and experiencing love and life from Father because they don’t know him personally.
What are your thoughts on this? What have you experienced in this revelation?
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Thanks for posting this devotional. This is exactly where I am at right now, a very trying time I must say, but Gid is defiinitely peeling back the layers and trying my heart. Often I really don’t like what I see, but change must come to my life if I am going to be the man He has predestined me to be.
Knowing Him and knowing about Him are two different things. A few years ago, I got a word after going through some major adversity, part of that word said that through my experience, God said I knew Him in a way men wish they know Him, my thought was…WOW!!…me??? I am back to that place again today but I feel as if I don’t know Him at all! My resolve? To Know HIm!
Thanks and Blessings and Favor to you and family.
I am realy touch by this article! In the busy days of my life, I feel a bit conforted, I know the theoratical part of knowing God. But I miss the point, a relationship goes deeper then that. In a relationship, you must take time to talk, share, express, etc, and get the feedback of the other person. In this case is getting feedback from The Person God himself.
No wonder I missed to many blessings.
Thanks for sharing!
Yeah, this is true. I have found in my own personal walk that it was easier and more convenient to open the pages and read a few passages than to actually use what I had read to develop a genuine relationship. I thought that was enough. But with any relationship it takes time and effort. Well written. God bless.
What does intimacy with God really mean? I have a deep longing in my heart to want to be with him and do nothing else. Yet there is life. That life seems to draw my heart away from the things of my God. The busy busy busy scene chokes me.
You’re right that someone who does not feel a personal relationship with God in his daily life is missing something extremely important. But also keep in mind that the Bible defines spiritual maturity in terms of extensive knowledge of biblical doctrine: Eph. 4:11-14, Heb. 5:11-6:2. Without much knowledge of biblical doctrine, many Christians feel that they have a deep relationship with God, but it’s actually shallow and immature. “This is love for God: to obey his commands” (1 John 5:3). We can’t love God if we are ignorant of His commands.
Thank you for sharing this part of your journey. I have had the privilege of having a mentor that really drilled home the reality that God created us to be human “beings” and not human “doings”. He has had regular extended times of solitude with the Lord for 20 years now and teaches and encourages other (especially leaders) to do this on a regular basis as well. Not tossing the Bible out because His Word is the ONLY authority and TRUTH, but to come to the Lord as we are with no agenda and just “be” with him. There is certainly a relationship to be had if we are willing to set aside the structure that we bind ourselves too. With that, I have to agree with what Mike said in that without biblical knowledge of who God is…we tend to create our own God which is dangerous ground. The last thing we want to do is jump on the world’s bandwagon and make God whoever we want him to be because we don’t want to be bound to a book. This is the most wonderful place to be and at the same time a dangerous place to venture. We can never turn to our own experience as a greater authority than God’s Word “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. The Bible is the ONLY absolute truth that never changes and isn’t based on experience.
I LOVE the fact that I have experienced God in ways that I never knew possible…and it saddens me also that there are thousands of Christians that will never know what they are missing until they are with him for eternity. We can have an intimate relationship now but I don’t think intimacy and God’s Word are mutually exclusive as God’s Word is where I go to receive encouragement and daily refreshment.
I loved the message you shared from your heart. It is amazing to me that our God loves us so much that He would want to have an intimate relationship with us. I have learned incredible things about my God through my years with Him, oh!! isn’t that funny that I used the words “about my God” when the title of this message is Knowing God or Knowing All About Him. But I have to agree with Mike Warren, we need to have the knowledge of biblical doctrine, and if we study the scriptures with open hearts, then we can see the heart of God unfolded on the pages of His Book. But I also understand that you were not trying to say that we didn’t need to know the Word for you stated that you did know the Word forwards and backwards. You were clearly sharing what God was teaching you regarding how much He wants you to KNOW HIM. God desires that we know His ways, through the study of scripture, and that we, in turn, desire to step into that intimate relationship with Him because we see how faithful He is and how great His love is and how obedience to His commands comes with great blessing. When we read how He worked in the hearts of people, we can be inspired that we can also see God work in our hearts and through our lives. I can relate 100% to the “peeling off layers of an onion”. Been there, done that, am still there, will be until my days are done. We also understand that there are trials as well, look at Job, David, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego, Abigail, Paul, Abraham & Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses. These were great examples for us to learn from and as we see their lives unfold throughout scripture, we learn, that even through trials they trusted God and when they didn’t, we see the consequences of their sin. To see the heart of God, through the study of His Word, and to realize that I can still hear His voice, just like Abraham did, is an inspiration to me that drives me further into the arms of my loving Heavenly Father. Let us realize that it does take both, learning to hear His voice, like Abraham and the continual reading of the Word. And let us not forget, it’s our hearts that he wants, not just our outward appearances of faith. “They have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof.”