Lesson 10. Knowing God. A school covering the foundations of the Christian faith that every Christian should know. The school consists of twelve lessons. The school was founded by the Christian Bible Institute.
In addition to studying the Bible and prayer, Scripture speaks extensively about the need to know God. Knowing God is an opportunity to know our Creator and Savior better and more intimately. People are limited by time, space, and matter. God is limitless; He is above our dimensions. More precisely, the dimensions of our world are found in God. Nevertheless, God wants people to know Him. This becomes possible when a person is born again.
Knowing God is not some mystical process about which one can philosophize. Knowing God is both practically possible and necessary for every Christian. It consists of the following stages:
1. Knowing God’s grace—salvation
Before a person can know God, they must acknowledge that they are a sinner in need of a Savior, Jesus Christ, who died for them on the cross, took their sin upon Himself, and gave them His righteousness.
Col. 1:6 “which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,”
2. Knowing God’s will
Knowing God’s will is expressed above all in seeing the practical meaning of the truths of Scripture as they specifically apply to you in your particular circumstances.
Col. 1:9 “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,”
“Wisdom” in this verse means a good knowledge of biblical truths and facts.
“Spiritual understanding” means the ability to see the practical value of these truths for you personally, in your situation.
God created human beings as rational creatures. This is part of what God called His “image and likeness” when He created humanity (Gen. 1:26). By receiving reason and the ability to make decisions from God, human beings also received responsibility. This means that people will always reap the results of what they do. After the Fall (Gen. 3:1–19), the human mind became darkened by sin (Eph. 4:17–18). As a result, people lost the ability to evaluate spiritual reality correctly.
Therefore, in order to make right decisions, a person must first acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus Christ in their life (receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior). In the new birth, a person rejects a value system built on self-centeredness and accepts the God-centered model for evaluating life presented in the Word of God—the Bible. This enables a person to have a proper perspective on everything happening around them.
The next important condition is knowing God’s will revealed in His Word. The Bible contains answers to many questions that arise in our practical lives. It says enough to prepare us “for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16–17); that is, everything necessary for living a life pleasing to God is revealed in the Bible.
To know its contents well and see its practical value, the Bible must be studied seriously and deeply. The more you know the Bible, the easier it will be for you to make the right choice in practical situations requiring a decision.
By studying the Bible seriously, a person becomes filled with a general knowledge of God’s wisdom, which enables them to evaluate what is happening in their life correctly. Therefore, when making a practical decision in your life, first make sure what the Bible says about the matter, and be ready to submit to its commands.
Another important condition for making good decisions is prayer. When studying the Bible and making decisions, you must pray to God, asking Him to help you understand the situation correctly and make the right decision. In such prayer, it is very important to express your complete trust in God and your willingness to follow His will—that is, to choose the option that most closely aligns with His principles presented in the Bible.
After you have prayerfully examined the Bible and see that neither decision contradicts the Word of God, you can be confident that God gives you the right to choose either one. God sees the believer as a fellow worker building His Kingdom (1 Cor. 3:9). In such situations, God seeks your deliberate decision.
To make better use of the decision-making right God has given you, you can use the following method: On a blank sheet of paper, draw two columns. In one column, write down all the possible positive aspects of your decision. In the second column, write down all the possible negative consequences of your decision. Do this for each possible option. Then compare all the pros and cons and choose the best option.
After you have made a decision, trust God. If you made every effort sincerely to know His will and fulfill it, you may ask God for His blessing on your decision.
3. Knowing God
Knowing God is the result of knowing His will and obeying Him.
Col. 1:10 “so that you may live worthy of God, fully pleasing Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God,”
The Apostle Paul saw knowing God as the only and absolute meaning of every Christian’s life.
Phil. 3:7 “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord: for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Homework: Memorize 1 John 2:12–14
Source: Christian Bible Institute
