How Can I know God?

by Rev. Timothy Keller

What It Means To Know God

What is Christianity? Some say it is a philosophy, others say it is an ethical stance, while still others claim it is actually an experience. None of these things really gets to the heart of the matter, however. Each is something a Christian has, but not one of them serves as a definition of what a Christian is. Christianity has at its core a transaction between a person and God. A person who becomes a Christian moves from knowing about God distantly to knowing about him directly and intimately. Christianity is knowing God.

"Now this is eternal life; that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." ~John 17:3

Why Do I Need To Know God?

Our desire for personal knowledge of God is strong, but we usually fail to recognize that desire for what it is. When we first fall in love, when we first marry, when we finally break into our chosen field, when we at last get that weekend house-these break-throughs arouse in us anticipation of something which, as it turns out, never occurs. We eventually discover that our desire for that precious something is a longing no lover or career or achievement, even the best possible ones, can ever satisfy. The satisfaction fades even as we close our fingers around our goal. Nothing delivers the joy it seemed to promise. Many of us avoid the yawning emptiness through busyness or denial, but at best there is just a postponement. "Nothing tastes," said Marie Antoinette. There are several ways to respond to this:

1. By blaming the things themselves: by finding fault in everyone and everything around you. You believe that a better spouse, a better career, a better boss or salary would finally yield the elusive joy. Many of the most successful people of the world are like this - bored, discontented, running from new thing to new thing, often changing counselors, mates, partners, settings.

2. By blaming yourself: by trying harder to live up to standards. Many people believe they have made poor choices or have failed to measure up to challenges and to achieve the things that would give them joy and satisfaction. Such people are wracked with self-doubts and tend to burn themselves out. They think, "If only I could reach my goals, then this emptiness would be gone." But it is not so.

 3. By blaming the universe itself: by giving up seeking fulfillment at all. This is the person who says, "Yes, when you are young you are idealistic, but at my age I have stopped howling after the moon." This makes you become cynical, you decide to repress that part of yourself that once wanted fulfillment and joy. But you become hard, and you can feel yourself losing your humanity, compassion and joy.

4. By blaming and recognizing your separation from God: by establishing a personal relationship with him.

The Christian says, "Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not mean that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing." - C. S. Lewis

How Can I Know God?

In order to form a personal relationship with God, you must know three things:

Who we are:
We are God's creation. God created us and built us for a relationship with him. We belong to him, and we owe him gratitude for every breath, every moment, every thing. Because humans were built to live for him (to worship), we will always try to worship something-if not God, we will choose some other object of ultimate devotion to give our lives meaning.

We are sinners:
We have all chosen (and re-affirm daily) to reject God and to make our own joy and happiness our highest priority. We do not want to worship God and surrender our self as master, yet we are built to worship, so we cling to idols, centering our lives on things that promise to give us meaning: success, relationships, influence, love, comfort , and so on.

We are in spiritual bondage:
To live for anything else but God leads to breakdown and decay. When a fish leaves the water, which he was built for, he is not free, but dead. Worshiping other things besides God leads to a loss of meaning. If we achieve these things, they cannot deliver satisfaction, because they were never meant to be "gods." They were never meant to replace God. Worshiping other things besides God also leads to self-image problems. We end up defining ourselves in terms of our achievement in these things. We must have them or all is lost; so they drive us to work too hard, or they fill us with terror if they are jeopardized.