TO BE KNOWN BY GOD! PART ONE

Hello Dear Beloved Reader,

Here is part one of "To be know by God." I pray as you read it, to read it slow to digest the heart of what the Lord is saying to us and let it uplift you into the deep of God's heart.

“The Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the Tent door and called Aaron and Miriam, and they came forward And He said, Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make Myself known to him in a vision and speak to him in a dream. But not so with My servant Moses; he is entrusted and faithful in all My house.  With him I speak mouth to mouth [directly], clearly and not in dark speeches; and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant Moses?” Numbers 12:5-8 (Amplified Bible)

One of the greatest things lost in the present church in our nation today is that very few people know the (Person) of the Lord. Today, many can speak of knowing the Lord in how he helps them, provides for them, what He has done for them. Matter of fact many churches today pride themselves in their “testimony services.”

This does please God for his children to acknowledge what the Lord has done for them. The Book of Psalms are filled with testimonies filled with the wonders of God. Plus, the Bible says, Psalm 22:3" But thou art holy, O thou that inhabits the praises of Israel."

Yet there is something deeper in the heart of God that He desires from us. It is greater than giving him thanksgiving, praise or even worship. It is greater than doing mighty things for His kingdom. What is that greatest desire? It is to TRULY KNOW HIS PERSON.

In the book of Numbers 12 Moses had done something that the Lord didn’t want him to do. After the death of Zeporah his wife, he married an a foreign woman,  Numbers 12: 1-3 "And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman. And they said, Hath the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the LORD heard it. 3(Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)"

This article is about “knowing God” the way God truly wants to be known. There is a much deeper relationship we as Christians could have with our Lord if we understood how available the Lord is ready to be known as a person. Not a person like us with flesh and blood. "God is a Spirit, and those who worship God, must worship Him in Spirit and Truth." (John 4:24)

He is not a person with a physical form, though Jesus does have a body, but a risen one not like our fleshly one. That new body appeared everywhere for 40 days to speak and train His disciples before He left the earth. What we are talking about is the Person of God, the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Each of them have a spiritual form that can be known as a real person. This knowing God as a person is done through experiencing the Lord’s Manifest presence. (This is not goosebumps alone, but it is a place when God finds someone who truly wants to know him for himself, he comes and manifests, (reveals) His person to one or more our 5 senses through the gift of faith He has given us.

When His Person is manifested to us or within us we may cry because we “feel” him touching our spirit, soul and body. We  may respond when a scripture is enlightened and we “see the Truth” become alive as He reveals His words personally to our spirit. The two men on the road to Emmaus had this experience with the manifest person and presence of God, “And they said to one another, were not our hearts deeply moved and burning with in us while He was talking with us on the road as He opened end explained to us the meaning of the scriptures.” (Luke 24:32)

At other times, He can appear to us in dreams and vision to reveal Himself. “And it shall come to pass in the last days, God declares that I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions and you old men shall dream dreams." (Acts 2:17) Can you see we have a seeking God who wants to be known and want us to be known by him.

That is what this teaching is about. It is about more than going to church, hearing a good sermon, taking good notes or doing a ministry. This teaching is about “knowing God.” Knowing God in reality is not that we just know"about" Him, but we know him as a person and we are (personally) known by him as "his friend." That is why he desires to manifest himself to us. The bible tells us that we can taste him and see that he is good. Psalm 34:8 O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

In Song of Solomon chapter 1 we see in the Shullimite woman the possibility to know the Lord as a Person and not just the big guy upstairs or the employer we work for. Let us read the Shullimite woman’s desire to truly,”know” the Lord and to be known by the Lord.

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine. (Now wine has a distinct taste to it and kisses have a real feeling to our natural bodies.) The odor of your ointment is fragrant; your name is like perfume poured out. Therefore the maidens love you.” (Song of Solomon1:2-3)

Yes, His goodness is a sweetness to our soul, His manifest presence fills us and makes us happy and not bitter on the inside. The bible says we can smell His very presence, Psalm 45:8 "All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.'

Our God can be personally known as intimately as a man and wife know each other in the most intimate way. The Bible teaches us this is the very heart of the relationship we are to have with the Lord,  Ephesians 5:31-33 (King James Version) For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

What mystery? The mystery of knowing God as a person (as a Spiritual being). This knowing the Lord so personally and intimately can be demonstrated in the same way as the relationship between a married couple in the closest physical, spiritual and emotional ways. This is what he says concerning the church and Jesus. Yet, far to many Christians live below on the lesser plain in their relationship with the Lord. All they know is “about his works, his power, his ability, but few know the Lord personally.

This was the apostle Paul’s cry in knowing the Lord, Philippians 3:10, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”

Again Paul writes to us: Philippians 3:8, “Yes, furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage) of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly]. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in order that I may win (gain) Christ (the Anointed One),”

The real life of a Christian is not measured in how much we do in working for the Lord, but how well do we truly know the Lord and be known by Him.  This is of the most vital importance for us to be able to truly be welcomed into the fullness of all God has for us. Many believer think that if they work hard for the Lord that proves they really know God. The following scriptures prove the exact opposite.

Matthew 7:21-23 (King James Version) Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

The word “knew” in this verse is translated in the Greek as being intimate as a husband would be with his wife sexually. The Lord says, I know your works, but I was never intimate with you. You never took time to know me as a person or to know my desires. In modern English it would be spoken like this, “You desire to bring your works into My sight to justify your relationship with me, and I say, “your righteousness is but a filthy rag. Depart from this “honored place” of those who truly know me, for you are not known by Me.

Now let’s go back to our opening dialogue scriptures between Mirriam, Aaron and Moses! Their personal relationships with God were on totally different levels of experience. Mirriam and Aaron were deceived into believing that their “knowledge of God” was equal to the knowledge and personal relationship that Moses had with God. They were deceived in thinking that there experience or knowledge was on the same level as the Man who met God face to face in a burning bush.

This is prevalent in our day as well. Many well intended Christian churches and Bible Schools believe that by their bible study and digging up a meaning of a word in the Greek or Hebrew they are spiritual and truly know God. They believe that putting a message together with simple bible school methods like hermonutics or homiletics that they are deep in God.

2nd Timothy 2: 15 says, "Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trial), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing [rightly handling and skillfully teaching] the Word of Truth." Yet this alone does not guarantee you truly know God or our known by God. Beloved we are not just supposed to know the book intimately, but the book is to lead us to know intimately the one that wrote it! God!

That is the same error the Pharisee’s made in their pride in boasting about knowing God. If this is not corrected with God it will lead to great deception, and the God they claim to know will not be the true God. Jesus' harshest words were to the Pharisee's, Saducee's and Lawyers. Those who intellectually knew about God and based their wisdom on their intelligent knowledge of God.

Jesus spoke this to the Pharisee’s in John chapter 8 verses 37-59 these words, Yes I know you are Abraham’s offspring, yet you plan to kill me, because My words have no entrance in your heart. They replied, “Abraham is our Father! Jesus replied, “If you were truly Abraham's children you then you would do the works Abraham did.

If God were your Father, you would love me and respect me and welcome me gladly, for I have proceeded from God (out of His very presence) I did even come on My own authority or of my own accord, but He sent me.  Why do you misunderstand what I say, It is because you are unable to hear what I am saying. You are of your father, the devil, and it is your will to practice the lust and gratify the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, for there is no truth in him. When he speaks what is natural to him, for he is liar and the father of all lies.”

These Pharisee’s were declaring they had an intimate knowledge of God. They claimed to be known by God, “we are offspring's of Abraham, He is our Father.” Yet they didn’t have any such relationship with God or they would have known who Jesus was and welcomed him.

Now in the church today in the USA, there are those that are like the Pharisee’s of yesterday. The word of God says, “Jesus the same, yesterday, today and forever.” Hebrews 13:8. Well we can also say, “the pharisees, the same, yesterday, today and forever.”

Many in the Body of Christ don’t have a right understanding of what God truly desires of us. We don't understand His yearning to reveal His person and presence to us, and make Himself known to us and in us. Our understanding is that we must "work for God" and just accomplish our mission of the Great Commission. Truly knowing the Person of God is not taught very much in the present day church.

Have you ever thought of what we are going to do and be in eternity when there are no more people to save, or get healed, delivered or even preach to? Beloved, We must press on to know the Lord as a Person and not just an idea of who we think we is. In part two we will continue or upward journey to truly know Him as a Person who wants to be known. Our desire is truly know God and be known by God. Amen.