KNOWING GOD WELL
19/02/24 14:37
There can be a lot of talk about God. Much of it beneficial, some it no better than ‘god talk.’ By personal experience and observation, I know that we can talk much about God, yet not know Him very well. Curiously enough, it is not hard to know Him in an increasingly life-giving way. A rapid increase in living in God’s revelation of who He is starts when we wise up to the fact that we do not discover much of Him in religion and that we begin to access an increasing revelation of Himself once we commit to knowing a personal, rather than a religious Jesus.
KNOWING
‘Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent’ John 17.3 NIV. Knowing God is analogous to knowing a spouse. The operative words is union and fellowship.
Eternal life is a state of being that we enter when we are born again. Genuine new birth is our transition from religion to union with God. It’s probable that most of us need to begin with religion, thinking that our reformed ways are the born again us. Genuine rebirth is of an entirely different order. It’s the beginning of Christ our life. Here Christ is for you and you are the expression of Him. This is Christ come in our flesh.
INTO LIVING WATER
Nevertheless, the superficial life entailed in merely moral living is usually necessary to propel us into seeking living water over dead water. The former is our oneness with God that was there all along waiting for us to dig it out of the ground.
THE CHARADE
The religious person is certain that Jesus is a hard man, reaping where He did not sow. The religious soul knows that life in the Spirit requires one’s entire being and for the moment, one can give the appearance of devotion by performing those one or two iconic religious behaviours, deemed important by one’s community without giving oneself. Thus, there are many who are not reborn into ‘Christ their life’, who spend much of their lives as the hollow men T S Eliot wrote about in The Wasteland. This robs such Christianity of substance and rather than increasing spirit and life, contribute to the current chaos that about in the world.
THE JESUS LIGHT
The revelation of God as God and ourselves as we really are comes to us in Jesus Christ. “Irenaeus did suggest .. that although we know, because of his greatness, that God is above the words we use of him, it is only by God’s love that they can be used at all (AH II.13.4).” So there is talk about God that works the best when we are one with God and not just talking about God.
The pointy end of the knowledge of God and self is Jesus Christ.
MADE TO LIVE IN GOD
As we grow out of childhood we recognise that there’s much more to our life in God than ‘Going to heaven.’ If we are seekers of God will see that being righteous is not all there is to know of God. The point of it all is union and fellowship with God in the now of life.
GET THE FOUNDATION
Being full of the Holy Spirit, is not necessarily oneness with God. Old Testament Godly folks often operated in the anointing, but none of them had the interwoveness with God that is ours today due to the atonement/incarnation. This is why all who believe are ‘Greater than John the Baptist.’
It’s the incarnation that belongs to all that makes us Godly and enlightens us about the nature of God. In this incarnation God becomes imbued in us. This is how we get spiritual life and how we become righteous.
The knowledge of God is progressive with many Believers gaining an understanding of our Father, of who Jesus is and what He has done for us and of Holy Spirit by whom God is alive in our being and by whom we do the works of Christ in ordinary family Godliness - as well as healing the sick, casting out demons and demonstrating that the Kingdom of God is here.
