Twelve Ways to Know God

Jesus defines eternal life as knowing God (Jn 17:3). What are the ways? In how many different ways can we know God, and thus know eternal life? When I take an inventory, I find twelve.

1. The final, complete, definitive way, of course, is Christ, God himself in human flesh.
2. His church is his body, so we know God also through the church.
3. The Scriptures are the church's book. This book, like Christ himself, is called "The Word of God."
4. Scripture also says we can know God in nature see Romans 1. This is an innate, spontaneous, natural knowledge. I think no one who lives by the sea, or by a little river, can be an atheist.
5. Art also reveals God. I know three ex-atheists who say, "There is the music of Bach, therefore there must be a God." This too is immediate.
6. Conscience is the voice of God. It speaks absolutely, with no ifs, ands, or buts. This too is immediate. [The last three ways of knowing God (4-6) are natural, while the first three are supernatural. The last three reveal three attributes of God, the three things the human spirit wants most: truth, beauty, and goodness. God has filled his creation with these three things. Here are six more ways in which we can and do know God.]
7. Reason, reflecting on nature, art, or conscience, can know God by good philosophical arguments.
8. Experience, life, your story, can also reveal God. You can see the hand of Providence there.
9. The collective experience of the race, embodied in history and tradition, expressed in literature, also reveals God. You can know God through others' stories, through great literature.
10. The saints reveal God. They are advertisements, mirrors, little Christs. They are perhaps the most effective of all means of convincing and converting people.
11. Our ordinary daily experience of doing God's will will reveal God. God becomes clearer to see when the eye of the heart is purified: "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God."
12. Prayer meets God—ordinary prayer. You learn more of God from a few minutes of prayerful repentance than through a lifetime in a library.

If we abide in Jesus as we live, then we are (our spirit) seated with Christ in heaven even now. Those, who abide in Jesus, will produce the fruits that Jesus has produced. Jesus pleased God by doing God's will so also they will please the Father. "John 15:4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing."

Christians believe that if we ask Jesus Christ to come in to our hearts he will come and live in our hearts and he will live in our hearts continually from then on. They also think that thus they will live with Jesus Christ not only now but throughout eternity. This sounds very good and it is also very easy. As good and as easy as it is, it is not true and it is a lie. The source of all lies is the devil. The statement "ask Jesus to come into your heart and Jesus Christ will abide in you from then on," probably could have started in children’s bible study and it became a church cliché. As good and innocent as it seems it is a deception and deception will not lead us to God but to damnation.

Jesus Christ requires his disciples to abide in him. If we follow Jesus Christ, then we are also his disciples. Then we are expected to abide in him. If we abide in Jesus Christ, then we will produce the fruit for the Father. "John 15:1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman." That is we will live a pure life as Jesus Christ lived, we will do the works that Jesus Christ did and we will teach the doctrine that Jesus Christ taught. Abide in Jesus Christ is the spiritual union of Jesus Christ with a person to enable the person to live as Jesus Christ lived. If we say that we abide in Jesus Christ and we do not live a pure life as Jesus Christ lived, then we are not telling the truth.

Abiding in Jesus Christ is a supernatural experience. In this, the person (seed) of God lives in us and he allows us to live in him. The omnipresence of God is not the abiding of God in his people. But, it is a personal experience of intimacy of us with God. Since he is a Spirit, it is possible for our spirit of man to abide with him and he in us if he allows it. God shows us the requirement for this abiding. If we love him enough to obey his commandments, we can abide in him and he will abide with us.  "John 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." If we abide in him while we live in this world, then this abiding will continue through out eternity. "John 14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. Luke 15:31 And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine."  Thus, we will live with God forever in his glory.