We have one life to live, so we must choose our purpose well.
This blog is dedicated to one worthy goal: knowing God and his ways. This is the good life.
God smiles on this pursuit.
Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Elsewhere the LORD says, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me” (Jeremiah 9:23–24).
The prophet Habakkuk describes our ideal future as “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).
A. W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
Knowing God is the ultimate experience, the ultimate knowledge, the ultimate purpose for living. Knowing God is an inexhaustible pursuit, for he is limitless. It is the good obsession.
Experiential knowledge
Knowing things about God is very important—it is foundational—but I am dedicated not just to know about God, as one learns about physics from a book, but actually to know God. By that I mean know him personally, as one knows a good friend, through conversation, through being and doing and working together.
I want to know his ways both by book and experience.
We all know what it’s like to feel as though we don’t know what we’re doing as we try to walk with God. We know what it’s like for our Christian experience not to “work” as it should. To read the Bible and feel as though our life does not match up.
To fail to see our prayers answered to the degree Jesus says is possible. To fail to see our faith moving mountains we think could be moved. To seek God’s guidance and wisdom but feel as though we are merely guessing at his will.
To be more familiar with God’s absence than his presence. To put our hand to God’s work and our vocation but see meager results. To be disappointed by lingering sins.
We sense our connection with God is less than it could be. There is more, and we know it. We need to know God and his ways better.
And we can.
The Wisdom of the Community
That is what God’s gift of today’s technology affords, the means to communicate and form community around this valuable pursuit in unprecedented ways. Near and far, at any time of day, with minimal expense. We can help each other know God and his ways. We can help each other make sense of walking with the God who both reveals himself and hides himself.
Typically I will write every other week, but you can contribute as well, in the comments. We can ask our questions. We can give clear answers, or possible answers, or tentative answers, as God gives us more or less wisdom.
In other words, none of us has all the answers, but we do have many. I look forward to learning from you, and I pray that you will learn from me.
I believe I can help you. I have been walking with the Lord and learning from other strong Christians since 1973.
I’ve seen lots of things in those years, some very good, some not so good. I’ve succeeded and failed. I’ve been a pastor for decades, an author and editor of numerous books and articles, and have earned a master’s degree in theology.
Most important, I’ve been a devout, close, slow reader of the Bible for all my Christian life, meditating on it deeply, trying to understand it fully, seeking to know God in it and through it, trying hard to believe it with a childlike heart and live it.
You can read more about my background in the About page.
This blog community will be a movement, for what we do is not meant for us alone. What we know of God is always meant to be shared. Love shares. Others need to know God better.
Let’s share what we do here with others and expand the knowledge of God in the world. The world will not be covered with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the water covers the sea if we horde what he gives us.
We must not hide our light under a basket. Our world desperately needs more of him. Other Christians need more of him.
How we know God
We know someone as great as God in many ways. Below are important ones I intend to explore in depth in the blog. Probably none of these will be new to you, but few of us have exhausted the possibilities for knowing God in each, or mastered each. I am still learning much in each of these 15 ways, and I suspect you can learn more as well.
1. We know God and his ways through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus is God’s unique Son, and therefore “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3). The gospel of Jesus Christ reveals the utterly counter-intuitive truth about God that we cannot know him through our self-reliant efforts to be good, but only through faith in Jesus Christ and his atoning work at the cross. This is the single most surprising truth about God. We must know this in order to know him. We must know it in our bones. It is the beginning. As the apostle John said, “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:12).
2. We know God through his Word. This happens on several levels. When we read the Bible we learn crucially important information about God. We learn about God, and that is huge. Apart from such information you don’t know God’s triune nature, his plan for saving mankind, his laws for how we must live in order to please him, what he loves and hates, and so on.
When we read the Bible, we also come to know God on the level of his voice. Reading the Bible teaches us the spiritual sound and feel of his voice. God is present when we humbly and sincerely read and meditate on his Word, and his presence makes his words come alive. We hear God in them, never or almost never audibly, but in our spirit those words resonate with the voice of God. God is speaking to us as we read. There is a very good reason why those who love God love the Bible.
3. We know God and his ways when we walk in love. John says, “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (4:16). If we lack love, we will be out of step with God. We will be on a different wavelength. We cannot know God deeply while having a fundamentally different way of thinking and feeling than he does.
4. We know God and his ways when our soul is characterized by all the fruits of the Spirit, walking all the paths of righteousness and holiness. When we have “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control,” (Gal. 5:22–23) we are thinking the way God thinks and acts. We are in sync with him, on the same page, on the same road, likeminded, like-hearted. We best know someone who is like is.
5. We know God personally by prayer. When we ask and receive, seek and find, knock and walk through the doors God opens, we know God in important ways. We experience a connection between what we pray and what happens to us in our circumstances. That is an invaluable knowledge and a precious experience. God is very real to people who know God hears their prayers.
6. We know God and his ways through inquiring of him for wisdom. One of the crucial skills for those who walk with God is to ask him for wisdom, as he tells us to do in James 1:5. When we don’t understand something about our lives or the Bible, when something in our Christian experience is not working the way the Bible suggests it should, we can ask him why. Paul the apostle is an example of this in 2 Corinthians 12:7–10. Many Christians become disillusioned and stuck in their attempts to walk with God because they do not know how to ask God for wisdom successfully. We will not know God’s ways apart from asking for wisdom.
7. We know God and his ways by learning to recognize his guidance. Some teachers call this hearing God’s voice. Not that we regularly hear God’s audible voice, or even necessarily his internal voice in our heart. This simply means recognizing God’s guidance in whatever way he gives it: in circumstances, through the counsel of leaders and others in our church, through the Bible, through divine peace within, through thoughts that come with a sense of divine emphasis. Moses began to know God when he noticed the burning bush and turned aside to learn more.
8. We know God and his ways when we walk in faith.
Many Christians believe in the gospel and thus are truly saved, but they barely progress in faith beyond that. They don’t believe the promises of God. They don’t believe many things in the Bible. Their worldview is shaped more by our secular world than by the Bible. They don’t believe God does miracles. They don’t really believe God answers prayer. In other words, although they believe God exists, they are practical atheists. Obviously, there is much they do not know about God and his ways.
We come to know God and his ways when we believe all the Bible and live as though it is true. In the interactions Jesus had with people in the Gospels he talked more about faith than any other quality. While the subject of faith has suffered many extremes and abuses, this is all the more reason to press in for a balanced, sound experience of true faith that is powerful and effective. Unbelief and doubt cripple and stunt our knowledge of God.
9. We know God and his ways by learning the ways of the Holy Spirit by experience. We can experience his presence and gifts. It is possible to be a lop-sided Christian who has extensive intellectual understanding of God but little experience in recognizing the works of the Holy Spirit beyond his works in saving and sanctifying the soul. If we are all for the Bible but numb to the Holy Spirit, we are missing a major component of Christian experience.
10. We know God and his ways by understanding how he tests his people. Proverbs 17:3 says, “The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the LORD tests hearts.” The failure to understand God’s ways in testing is one of the main gaps people have in their knowledge of him.
11. We know God and his ways when we practice his presence. Practicing God’s presence means that moment by moment we are aware of him, depending on him, doing for him, loving him. Learning to do this consistently transforms our lives.
12. We know God and his ways when we work with him. In the Bible when God comes on the scene, it is nearly always to put people to work. When you walk with someone who is on a mission, which God is, you simply must join the mission. Stewardship, productivity, and fruitfulness are more important to God than most people realize.
13. We know God and his ways when we sincerely and fervently worship him for his infinite superiority and perfect holiness. Our God is an awesome God. He is the Almighty. He is a consuming fire. He is Creator and Savior. He is great and greatly to be praised. Therefore knowing God means learning to worship. If we are not moved to worship him, if worship is not second nature to us, our experiential knowledge of him is meager indeed.
14. We know God and his ways when we study biblical doctrine. We live in an anti-intellectual, anti-doctrine age, but this is a serious mistake that mirrors the irrationality of fallen Western culture. The central doctrines of the Bible are the most important truths of the Bible, of human existence. They form a correct worldview about the reality conceived, created, and upheld by God, and thus reveal his mind. The central doctrines tell us about the existence and nature of God, about the origin of the material universe and life on earth, about the future and the meaning of history, about the objective morality grounded in God, about the invisible spiritual world, about how to live to please God. When we learn and believe these truths, we love God with our mind and see his glory.
15. We know God and his ways when we persevere. Scripture says, “Wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:14), and the Lord “acts for those who wait for him.” Any seasoned Christian will vouch for the truth of these words. Many things, probably most things, in our spiritual lives require enormous persistence before we see God’s promise fulfilled.
Let’s do this
In seeking to know God I have found something helpful. When I start my day and projects in the day, I pause to pray and orient my purpose around knowing and communing with God. I’m a to-do list kind of person who loves to get things done. I love to determine priorities and then accomplish the highest one. By default that becomes my purpose when my real purpose should be to love and know God through what I am doing.
So I pray in order to straighten out my purpose. I tell God, “Lord, I want to know you through this. I want to do this with you. I cannot do it alone, nor do I want to.” I can feel an important shift in my soul as I pray in this way. Everything you do is an opportunity to know God by doing it with him.
Let’s become a movement of people who know God personally. Let’s learn God’s ways better so we know how to make our Christian lives work as the Bible describes, to see our prayers be powerful and effective, to watch our work for God bear fruit like never before, to overcome vestiges of sin and brokenness. Let’s renew our minds. Let’s make sense of all the Bible reveals about God (that may take a few days). Let’s help others do the same.
I invite you to read every week and get new energy to stay on the path of knowing God and his ways. And as soon as you feel at home, I invite you to participate and contribute. You can always connect with me at 
My prayer
We cannot accomplish an agenda as ambitious as this in the flesh. We need revelation from God the Holy Spirit. So we must pray.
My daily prayer (I mean that) for you and all in this knowing-God, online community is the prayer of the apostle Paul: “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened” (Ephesians 1:17–18).
I am going to pray daily that God will do this in every person who reads this blog.