“How do you know God?  Does He talk to you directly?  Have you even seen Him?  How do you know who He is?”

These are questions that are often asked of believers.  These are questions that some believers even ask.  These are questions I used to ask myself.

So, how do we know God?  I find it is the same way we know any person.  How do we know people?  We spend time with them.  When you meet someone for the first time you get to know a little about them.  You know as much as they reveal to you at that point in time.  Each time you meet there after you may learn a little more.  You see things they do and habits they may have. You get to know if they are trustworthy and other qualities they have.  You can know someone for years and still learn something new.  For example, I have been married to my wife for almost 10 years and the other day I just found out she doesn’t like cherry flavored things.  She likes cherries but not cherry flavored things like cherry pop-tarts or cherry coke.  This may seem small, but it is an example of no matter how long you have known someone, you can still learn more.

This is an example of how our relationship is with God.  We get to know Him through the Scriptures.  My experience so far in reading the Bible is I always learn more about who God is.  I can read the same passage a few different times and He reveals something new.  It is just like how we get to know other people.

God gave us Holy Scripture so we can know Him.  It is His letter or email to His people.  The Bible is not like any normal book.  It is not a book you read just once and you understand.  It is not “Twilight”, “Harry Potter”, and definitely not “50 Shades of Grey”, (although the book Song of Solomon in the Bible does get pretty steamy.)  He did not design it to be read as such.  It is the living and breathing Word of God.  The more you read and study it, the more you know who He is.  He will reveal more to you the more you pursue Him just as you pursue a person.  It is the only true way to know who He is and how He wants us to live as His sons and daughters.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.  Romans 12:2

Here is a problem some face when trying to know God.  Sometimes we conform to this world.  We listen more to what the world says instead of what God tells us through His Word.  This world distorts His Word and we are deceived by that distortion.  From this distortion, some think either there isn’t a God, or if there is, He either can’t be known or He is bad because the world is bad.If however, they read, study, and begin to understand His Word, they would see these things explained.  They would see the world for what it is and God for Who He is.  His Word reveals God to be Just, Loving, Truthful, and the Giver of hope in what is to come.  God is a healer.  He is the beginning and the end.  He is a creator and father.  He is merciful.  He is so much more and He reveals this in His Word.

Thus says the Lord, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.  Jeremiah 9:23-24

If you want to know who God is start with His Word.  The fact that you want to know who He is shows that the Holy Spirit may be at work in your heart.  Let Him keep working.  Pursue Him.  Read His Word.  It is a gift.  It has survived thousands of years.  Throughout history the evil one, through people, has tried to destroy, control, and distort God’s Word, but God made a way for it to come to all to read and know Him.

The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.  Isaiah 40:8

If you feel the Holy Spirit moving you to know God and read His Word, keep in mind the big picture.  The entire Bible points to One.  From Genesis to Revelation there is One.

The Savior.  The Sanctifier.  The Healer.  The Coming King.

Jesus Christ

It is very sad and humbling to see the tendency of… those who, if they do not reject the Bible altogether, will compromise its supremacy and question its infallible authority. The Bible is either everything or nothing. Like a chain which depends upon its weakest link, if God’s Word is not absolutely and completely true, it is too weak a cable to fix our anchorage and guarantee our eternal peace. Thank God, we have reason to accept it as the supernatural revelation of a supernatural God, the word not of man, but the Word of God that lives and abides forever.

A. B. Simpson Biography and Bibliography