Does this ever happen to you? You thought you already knew someone but then as your relationship gets deeper and you get to know them even more, you find out that what you knew about them was just the tip of the iceberg? Of course, we may never know a person completely but sometimes it can still feel like “Oh, I didn’t know ‘that’ about you!” The more we learn about people the more their behavior starts to make sense, we can see why certain things are important to them and why they have a certain principle or belief gains much clarity.
It’s amazing how our perspective of someone changes as we know them deeper.
The same thing is true with God. Growing up, we may have a general knowledge and faith that there is God. We are born with this sense of what’s good and what’s bad and we have our conscience. Whether we believe in faith that this is proof of God’s existence, we still can’t deny the fact that we all have this general understanding of morality which may have been our first glimpse that there is a Source of morality.
But this is not everything there is to know about God. Thankfully He does not want us wondering and wandering all our lives in search of knowing Him better. God wants us to know Him… personally!
General revelation is what we first encounter-- seeing creation and our sense of morality is God’s way of making Himself and His existence plain to us, as the Bible says in Romans 1:20. As with our comparison of getting to know people and its various stages...with God, this initial knowledge is just the tip of the iceberg.
After we initially come to know God, we can then learn more and more about Him through His Word--this is a special revelation. God has given us His written word for us to know what He is like, what is pleasing to Him and what’s not, how He loves, how He judges and so much more. We don’t have to guess about God, everything is clearly written and can be seen as we study the Bible.
His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. (Acts 17:27)
This is eternal life
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. (John 17:3)
Many people want eternal life, have tried different religions and followed different beliefs just to attain it. But Jesus says eternal life comes through knowing Him and placing our faith in Him. Eternal life is not just heaven, it is knowing Who is in heaven.
What is eternal life without knowing our glorious and powerful God?
We are created to know Him
He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
As some people say, there is a void in the human heart that only God can fill. We are created for eternity! This is why we crave purpose, we search for meaning and we want to live for something remarkable. We long for more than this world could ever offer and that search only becomes satisfied in knowing Him.
The good news for us is that we don’t have to wait to go to heaven to know the Creator, we just have to get into His Word and seek Him. God says in Jeremiah 29:13 “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.”
You don’t have to settle for knowing God from afar or for empty religion, you can come close to your Father’s heart and let Him fuel your faith!