Knowing God More Deeply
Klaus Issler
“Come near to God
and he will come near to you.” JAMES 4 : 8
Given the
opportunity—to live now or to live during the
time when Jesus Christ
walked this very earth—which would we choose?
Some of us would jump at the
offer to be with Jesus. To be comforted by his smile
and reassured by his embrace.
To see his miracles firsthand—the lame walking,
the blind with sight. To chat with
him as did Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Does your heart
yearn for such intimacy and
immediacy? Yet why might Christians dream of seeing
Jesus, touching him, hearing
him? Is it because we detect some distance in our
relationship with God? Do we
want something more? Were first-century Christians
better off because they
actually saw Jesus and fellowshiped with him, while
we have to limp along with our
meager faith? In the final hours before his arrest,
Jesus revealed to his
disciples—and to all believers—the
promise of a close and deepening relationship
with God. “He who loves me will be loved by my
Father, and I too will love him and
show myself to him” (Jn 14:21, emphasis
added).
The Bible
claims that a personal relationship with God is
possible, yet a certain
distance remains. Like Moses of old who asked to see
God’s glory (Ex 33:18), do
we wish we could enjoy more of God’s
presence?
The Adventure of Knowing
God
Although I
am a seminary graduate who has served in full-time
ministry for more
than twenty years, I am mapping new terrain in my
journey with God. My ideas
about God have been stretched beyond comparison with
former ways of thinking,
and I feel much closer to God. A few years ago I
sensed some turbulence in my
soul, yet the practices I engaged in and the
perspectives I had about knowing God
were not helping me go deeper. Looking back I see
how God brought people,
books, ideas and events into my life to prod me
forward into fascinating realms of
new-to-me thoughts and experiences in knowing him.
The year 1997 stands out in
a special way. In January I was temporarily blinded
in one eye for three weeks, and
I learned to lean more on God. Seven months later I
experienced a three-week
spiritual retreat of solitude in which I sensed the
presence of God as never before.
There is so
much more God has in mind for us than I previously
thought possible.
I now live more in his grace and peace and
love—a sense of duty motivates me
less. I find myself in conversation with God more. As
I rely more on God and pray
more earnestly, I can discern specific answers to
prayer. In a word, I feel more
connected with God. Struggles and frustrations
still dog my day, yet I sense less
distance than before. With greater intensity, I
appreciate how personal God is. I
enjoy expending more effort to know God, the God who
wants to know me. This
book is written to help believers respond to
God’s invitation to know him better
and sense his presence more deeply. Furthermore, the
majestic God of the
universe will go to great lengths to enjoy a deep
friendship with us. It is the
greatest love story ever. “For God so loved the
world that he gave his one and
only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not
perish but have eternal life” (Jn
3:16). “Now this is eternal life: that they may
know you, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3). In
the future, God will bring to
completion his long term dream—to live with
us fully:“The home of God is among
mortals. He will dwell with them; . . . they will be
his peoples, and God himself will
be with them” (Rev 21:3 NRSV, emphasis
added).
Our great
God wishes to lavish on us his limitless love and to
invite us into
experiencing life to its fullest. The prophet Isaiah
casts a vision of this wonder. On
this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all
peoples a feast of rich food, a
feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with
marrow, of well-aged wines
strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all
peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations;
he will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all
faces, and the disgrace of his
people he will take away from all the earth, for the
LORD has spoken. It will be said
on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for
him, so that he might save us.
This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us be
glad and rejoice in his
salvation. (Is 25:6-9 NRSV) Such joy awaits all
believers, beloved of God, yet
there is much to enjoy now as well. What is it like
to be friends with God? Bring to
mind all of the good times you have had in the
company of your friends—sipping
coffee at an outdoor cafe, shopping till you drop at
the mall, playing pickup
basketball, sharing intimate secrets and on and on.
Take all these moments,
feelings and memories, wrap them up together,
multiply them a thousand times,
and then we might begin to get an idea of what
friendship with God is like.1 It is
the best of the best, the cream of the crop. It is
worth more than anything we
could ever own or accomplish on our own.
The Beginning of Any
Personal Relationship
The popular
line in Christian circles—“God loves you;
he can never love you any
more than he does now”—conveys something
right and something wrong. Of
course, God’s parental love for every believer
is constant, but how well we know
each other varies over time to the extent that God
and believer each pursue an
interactive relationship. For example, when a child
is born into a family, a blood
relation is established, but child and parent do not
yet know each other. At the
beginning, there is a built-in hiddenness. This is
true with any new relationship,
whether with parent and child or with a new neighbor,
a new coworker on the first
day at the job, or a new teacher and fellow students
on the first day of class. A
person’s physical features are transparent, but
the inner person is initially hidden.
Time and common experiences together will provide the
opportunity, but each
party must decide whether or not it is worth the
effort to bring down the barriers
of self-hiddenness. Some parents and children
actually work at this opportunity and
begin the process of friendship. Yet others are
clueless about the need to be
intentional and so settle for a shallow association
of civility, missing out on the joys
of genuine companionship. A growing relationship is
based on continual and mutual
self-revelation, and so it is with God. We can pursue
a closer relationship with God,
or we can settle for a superficial tie—and
God’s hiddenness remains. God gives us
the freedom either way.
To change
the metaphor, imagine a situation in which three
consultants working for
one client have all been invited for the first
face-to-face lunch meeting with the
client.2Consultant A corresponded with the client
through letters and e-mail.
Consultant B connected with the client many times by
a cell phone. Consultant C
used several video conferences to contact the client.
At the lunch meeting, how
comfortable will each consultant be at the table with
the client? Of course each
consultant knows the client; yet there is a
different quality of relational knowledge.
Consultant A has only read the words of the client.
Consultant B is familiar with the
client’s voice and tone. Consultant C was
technologically present with the client and
became accustomed to various nonverbal mannerisms.
Likewise in our
relationship with God, the relational quality will
vary, depending on how each
believer regularly chooses to connect with
God.
Seeking God
is not just a one-time affair; it must become a
continuing lifestyle if
believers want to deepen a friendship with him. Do we
only associate the phrase
seeking God with those who have not yet
responded to God’s gracious call to join
his family? The need to seek God does not end when we
are transferred into God’s
kingdom and family. Believers must continue to be
seekers of God; it is our life
purpose and brings to fulfill mentour full potential
for living.3The Bible teaches that
a continuing relationship with God requires the
participation of both parties: “Come
near to God and he will come near to you” (Jas
4:8).
Our love
relationship with God can always grow deeper
and deeper. Furthermore,
since God is mysterious, incomprehensible,
transcendent,an infinite being of such
independence and otherness, the Bible informsus that
finite believers can never
plumb all of the depths of whoGod is (e.g., Ps 145:3;
Rom 11:33). As theologian
Wayne Grudem explains,“For all of eternity we
will be able to go on increasing in
ourknowledge of God and delighting more and more with
him.”4
Believers
can grow deeper in their relationship with God now
and continue the
process in eternity, yet never reach an end to
knowing God.5
Growing in
intimacy with God is possible. Redeemed humanity
hasbeen designed
expressly by God—originally created in his
image (Gen1:26; Jas 3:9) and now
being conformed to the image of his Son
(Rom8:29)—to be in continual
communion with God (Jn 17:3). Furthermore,within the
context of a deep and
dependent relationship with God, therichness of life
and all its potential is open to
us. For example, the joy offriendship becomes
enriched. Work flows more deeply
from innerstrength. Life and ministry in the body of
Christ are uplifting. The Onewho
created life knows best how to really live it.
Without being consistentlyconnected
with God, we fall short of what we were designed to
be.
Our Expectations of
God
How well do
we know God? What do we expect him to do? Our
realconceptions of
God are often revealed at those times when life
turnsupside down. For example, as
Van walks down the hospital corridortoward his
wife’s room, he wrestles with the
implications of her diagnosis.She may die in six
months. They knew something was
up—”Davy”became tired easily. In
order to reduce the stress in her life, she quit
herpart-time job. They have always been deeply in
love with each other.Only within
the past two years had Davy and then Van come to a
joyfulknowledge of Jesus
Christ as Savior. And these two, inseparable
throughoutfifteen years together, may
be torn apart. As Van approaches herroom, a
depressing loneliness and fear claim
his soul. God seems a million miles
away.6
When jolted
by the speed bumps of life, do we wonder why God
doesnot clear the
road? Do we expect God to be our celestial Superman,
flying in at the right
moment to save the day? How many no-shows does it
take before we begin to
doubt that God loves us or wonder whether he is
really there at all? Forgiveness of
sins and a future life in heaven without suffering
are great gifts indeed, but we want
a touch from eternity now as disappointment
descends on our soul.
The quality
of our life experience is linked to our view of God
andwhat we expect
God to do. For example, if God is viewed as an
exacting,legalistic judge, he would
keep track of every jot and tittle in our lives,
includingeach lie, each angry moment,
each lustful thought. Would notthis “god”
plague us with guilty reminders of our
sins or punish us at eachopportunity? Or maybe we
conceive of God as a jovial
grandfather typewith a twinge of Alzheimer’s
disease and an elastic sense of grace.
He would largely ignore whatever we do and excuse any
wrong actions. Or maybe
God always enjoys a good bargain: “Let’s
make a deal.” If we do something good
for him, then he will come through for us. But what
happens when it appears that
he does not hold up his end of the
bargain?
Turning
Genesis 1:26 upside down, do we tend to create a god
in our own image?
A. W. Tozer (d. 1963) notes this peculiar penchant:
“Alwaysthis God will conform
to the image of the one who created it and will
bebase or pure, cruel or kind
according to the moral state of the mind from which
it emerges.”7
Our ideas
about God influence how we conduct our lives. Indeed,
it may well be
that the most important thing about us is what comes
tomind when we hear the
word God, as Tozer clarifies:
That our
idea of God correspond as nearly as possible to the
true being ofGod is of immense
importance to us. Compared with our actual
thoughtsabout Him, our [doctrinal] statements
are of little consequence. Our realidea of God may
lie buried under the rubbish of
conventional religiousnotions and may require an
intelligent and vigorous search before it
isfinally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only
after an ordeal of painfulself-probing are
we likely to discover what we actually believe about
God.A right conception of God is basic
not only to systematic theology but topractical
Christian living as well. It is to worship what
the foundation is tothe temple; where it is
inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure
mustsooner or later collapse. I believe there is
scarcely an error in doctrine or afailure in
applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced
finally to imperfectand ignoble thoughts
about God.8
Similarly,
Dallas Willard warns that we position ourselves in a
spiritual cul-de-sac if
we neglect to correct and grow in our knowledge of
God.Misunderstandings,
mental confusions, and mistaken beliefs . . . about
God. . . make a strong walk
with him impossible, even if we’ve chosen, in
effect,not to think about it. I have
seen repeatedly confirmed, in often tragic cases,the
dire consequences of refusing
to give deep, thoughtful consideration tothe ways in
which God chooses to deal
with us and of relying on whateverwhimsical ideas and
preconceptions about his
ways happen to be flyingaround us. This is very
dangerous to our health and well-being.9False
God-in-the-box ideas damage our spiritual life.In
December 1998,
NASA launched a $125-million Mars Climate Orbiterto
explore the planet of Mars.
Yet after a journey of nine-plus monthsthrough outer
space, the Orbiter
disappeared September 23 upon entryinto the Martian
atmosphere. The
embarrassed rocket scientists confessedto a
profoundly simple mathematical
error—failing to convert accelerationdata from
English units of force into metric
units called newtons.“The bad numbers had been
used ever since the launch in
December, butthe effect was so small that it went
unnoticed. The difference added
upover the months.”10After traveling 416
million miles, the Orbiter arrived56 miles
too close to Mars and was destroyed. It was a minor
error thatresulted in
devastating consequences. Might slightly off-course
ideasabout God yield
analogous disaster for believers?
Confronting False
Assumptions
Through his
life example and teachings, Jesus consistently
confrontedwrong-headed notions about God and his
plan. The Gospel writers highlightsuch
encounters by recording how the crowds or the
disciples were“amazed,”
“astonished” or “marveled” at
his teaching (e.g., Mt 7:28;12:23, 22:22, 33; Mk
6:2; 11:18; Lk 4:32; Jn 4 |