Is It Possible To Truly Know God?

“I brought you to a garden land where you could eat lush fruit. But you barged in and polluted my land, trashed and defiled my dear land. The priests never thought to ask, ‘Where’s God?’ The religion experts knew nothing of me. The rulers defied me. The prophets preached god Baal And chased empty god-dreams and silly god-schemes.” – Jeremiah 2:8 (MSG). 

Is it possible to know God well? After all, He is God. He made all others, and any importance they have is owing to Him. Any strength or intelligence or skill or beauty that we have comes from Him. He is infinitely greater than the best person you ever knew or ever heard of.  It is impossible for God to be boring or uninteresting. So given all that, how well do we know Him? 

We need to know Him because God impacts every attitude, thought, and action we take. If we see Him as uncaring, we will struggle with believing He truly loves us. If we look at God as a stern no-nonsense judge, then we will look at God as being unfair. In addition, our culture consistently sends us messages about how to see God as well. Over time, this can make it difficult to truly know God. ”Behold, God is great, and we know him not…” (Job 36:26 ESV)  Can we really, in this life say, “I know God?” The answer is yes but with a caveat. We can only know God if we put in the effort to know Him.  

Because God is not a passive object of study for us to conduct when we have time. Knowing God is not a laid-back spectator sport. The reality is that we can know a great deal about God without much knowledge of Him. An interest in theology and knowledge of God and the capacity to think clearly and communicate clearly on Christian themes is not the same thing as knowing Him. Knowing Him will require everything in our being, our heart, and our emotions. Our life must say to God, “I want to know you.”

Jeremiah 29:13 says, “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me”Jesus said in Luke 11:9-10, “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

God promises that when we seek Him, we will find Him. He also promises to give us the Holy Spirit we need in order to know Him if we ask. So what about you: How much effort are you putting in to truly know Him?  

If we are not investing time in getting to know God, it’s as though you were flown at the speed of light for a couple of hours around the sun and the solar system, and instead of looking out the window, you opted to read a book. Or if you could go back in time and spend some quality time with Abraham Lincoln, or Martin Luther King Jr, or Gandhi or Mother Theresa, but you preferred to binge-watch Heartland on Netflix. My prayer is that God would incline our hearts, and open our eyes to see Him as fully as we can and seek to know Him more.

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you know God? How do you know for sure?
2. Why is sincerely following a religion not the same as knowing and loving God?
3. What steps can you take practically in your life to better know God?