The Ways to Know God
John 14:8-9

- Voice of our soul

Psalms 42:1 - As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.

If we look inside of man, there is the voice of the soul. When we are able to hear the voice of our soul, then we can meet God. No matter how much we may not recognize God outwardly, we will know the truth if we listen to our voice from within.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God." Those with a clean heart can see God. The problem is that our heart is often covered by darkness. Therefore, we should listen carefully to voice of our spirit.

The spirit is not something that is only inside of Christians; it is within everyone. When we have a pure heart, that is when we can sense the inward longing for the Lord. The problem lies in the fact that there are many obstacles in our path toward God. Therefore, prayer was given as a blessing to man. When we pray, we can hear the faint voice of God in our hearts.

There is a statistic which states that 80% of the non-Christians would find God if they truly listened to their spirit. Unconsciously, we know about God. We should all be people that listen to the voice of God's spirit inside of us.

- Creator of the world

Romans 1:20 - For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

How can we know God? We can know God by the outward things He created. By looking at the created world, we cannot deny that God exists. If there is a design, there has to be a designer. The fact that there is creation means there is a creator.

To have a result, there must be a cause. When we look at this world, we can see that it is actually harmonious. How could this have come about randomly? Even scientists who research the universe are amazed. Everything seems to move toward one motive. How could all creation move toward on motive without one creator?

Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Only the Bible records this faith of creation. God not only created the world, but He also preserves the world. You can relate this to a garden. If we have a garden but we do not trim it, that garden will become desolate. Likewise, the world is like a huge garden, and it has it's own time like the seasons. Yet, how does it not decay? It's that there is someone who is preserving this world. God is the origin of life; he endlessly breathes this life into the world, so that it can be preserved.

When man loses this praise for God, then man falls. The fall of man comes when we praise man and forget that God is the creator and the one who preserves us. In Ecclesiastes, the book of wisdom, Solomon taught that everything is meaningless and that man has a time limit. Acknowledging this is true wisdom. Man becomes mundane when he forgets to praise God.

Therefore looking at the world, we cannot deny that God is the creator. Through our surroundings, God reveals to us His existence.

- Revelation of Christ

Even though we can know discover that God exists through the first two methods, we still can't know God perfectly through them. We may know that there is a creator, but then we do not know who the creator is. It is just like someone who comes and knocks on your door. We know someone is at the door, but we do not know who is there.

We want to know who God is. We want to know the Him more deeply and precisely. Then how can we ultimately know God? It's that we can only know God when God opens and reveals Himself to us. This is called revelation.

In the big picture, there are two kinds of revelations: one normal and one special. Normal revelation can known through the creation of the world, through visions and dreams. However, special revelation is the revelation we receive through Christ. We can know God the best by knowing His son, Jesus Christ. Only the Son can perfectly reveal the Father.

Jesus is the perfect revelation of God. To know Christ is to know God correctly. Why do we study the Bible? It is to know Jesus Christ. Even the Bible has the revelation of God. When we know Christ through the gospel, then we can know God through direct revelation, because Jesus was the embodiment of the Word.

We all want to meet God. Therefore, we must meet Jesus. Knowing Jesus is the orthodox approach to knowing God. Beyond sensing the presence of God or looking at the creations of the world, we must know Jesus Christ to know God perfectly. Jesus Christ is the 100% revelation of God and he laid down absolutely everything before God.

Because of this, the disciples have this confession on their lips, that Jesus is God. Their confession is that if God would come in flesh, then it could be in no other way than Jesus Christ. This is the confession that God is incarnated through Jesus, that the Word became flesh.

John 1:14 - The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

This is the confession that Jesus cannot simply be man. It's that he must also be God. This should be our confession of faith. How can we know God? It is through the life of Jesus. Through his life, we can see the deity and the life of God.

Colossians 2:9 - For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,

John 14:8-9 - Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us."
Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father?'

The one who has seen Jesus has seen God. If we do not know Jesus, we do not know God. How worthy is this life? How valuable is this life in that we can meet God? We should be people who seek God, and experience the mystery of His presence. We should always long to know God, look for Him, and experience the revelations that He grants us.

Apostolos Campus Ministry