Knowing Jesus

What does it mean to know Jesus? You hear people say you need a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. And "do you know him?" Many times people answer, "oh yeah I know him! I'm a Christian. Woo hoo praise God!", but don't have the slightest idea what it means. It's really a bit of a difficult concept especially for someone who doesn't "know him". But from what I can tell, like most everything, our ability to really know him is based in our faith. Knowing Jesus, at first starts with believing what the Bible says about him. It's about believing what the Bible says about who He is.. his character, his love for you, his power, his authority and all his attributes. And then most importantly, believing that he is with you right now this very moment... that he always was and always will be with you. Not looking at you from over a cloud off in the distance, but inhabiting you. Living in your very heart. And if he isn't in your heart, if you simply invite him to be there... he will come. When he comes he begins to convict you to change things. He wants you to do things His way. The Bible tells us (Luke 9:23) if anyone would come after me he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. By nature (flesh nature) we naturally desire to have OUR way in everything. When we don't get our way we believe we are miserable and in some form or fashion tend to express pouting. But as we learn to live with Jesus inhabiting our hearts we begin to have a new nature. This nature is referred to as the spirit nature. Our spiritual nature desires to have things God's way. Not because he is some oppressor over us forcing us to do things his way, but because we realize that his way is really better. As we learn to trust in who the Bible says he is and how wise and loving he is we also realize he has our best interests at heart. Much like how an earthly father usually is with their children. Knowing Jesus involves simply believing who he is according to what the Bible reveals and who he is according to what he reveals to you. This second part doesn't really come that much until you begin praying to him. The amount of prayer in your life is directly proportional to how well you really "know" Jesus. As you pray you form a concept in your mind of God and who he is, and what his character is. Then you try to relate to him with words. You try to communicate your thoughts and feelings and understanding of things to him. Why? Because this is what anyone does when they want to know someone else! They try to communciate to them with words. The next vital part of any relationship is for you to listen to the other person you are trying to know. Now if someone told me a statue could talk and I walked up to it and started talking to it... and then tried to listen to it, finally giving up saying, "oh well I guess it doesn't really talk." What was the problem? Most likely because deep down I really couldn't get past the fact that I believe it is impossible for statues to talk. Knowing Jesus involves believing that something is possible which the world will say is impossible. Until you truly believe that God can and does communicate to you specifically, you will never be able to hear him. So you say, "what if I don't know?" What if I just really am having a hard time believing this? It seems so ludicrous. God uses foolish things to shame and elude the worldly wise. (1 Cor. 1:27) The best thing to do first is simply pray about something. Don't necessarily ask for a new Porsche and wait to see if the car will appear on your driveway. But you could ask for a new Porsche and wait to see how God responds. If you continue praying about something over time and seeking an answer from the Lord as a person that gives replies to questions and requests, eventually you will see or hear or feel his response. He communicates in many different ways. Next... keep a prayer journal. As soon as you feel God has communicated to you about something in some way. Write it down. Write down in a journal prayers that you are praying now and leave space to fill in how you feel God has answered that prayer later. Over time your journal will serve as a testimony to you and build faith for you in Him. "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him". (Heb. 11:6) One thing I've learned over time is that when a Christian sins he or she tends to push away their belief in the fact that God is always with them and in their very heart and sees and knows things just as they do. Because when you truly believe that God is with you and watching you and is as close to you as you are to your own reflection when you stand face to face with your self gazing in the mirror. It becomes extremely difficult to sin. At least if you truly love him it does. And the more you know about him and come to know of him firsthand from experiences the more you begin to love him and realize how much he loves you. There are many things that people believe in without fully understanding how it is possible. People don't always understand aerodynamics and how a plane could really fly yet they get on them. I'm reminded of a scene from Planet of the Apes where one of the leader Apes is handed a paper airplane that the man had created claiming that it could fly. The ape looked at it and thought about it for a second and then proclaimed, 'that's ridiculous' and waded the paper airplane up in his hand into a paper wad and dropped it on the floor. There is a Bible verse that says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good". This verse encourages you to try it and then you will find your evidence that the Lord is good. The ape could never watch that paper plane fly until he first believed it was possible or at least might be possible. People don't completely understand automobiles, computers, VCRs DVD players and microwaves but they use them. Oh yeah we have a general understanding of what is happening, or at least what people say is happening but we don't neccesarily fully understand it. If we got really interested in how it worked we could ask someone we saw as an expert on it and then try to study books others have written on the subject. The same is true about trying to understand how one can know God. It's also possible to know God without really understanding how it's possible to know God. Just as you can push start on a microwave and watch it cook your food without understanding how. But if you thought the idea ridiculous you would never put your food in there and press start. Even if somone else did it and said, "look see!", without belief you would try to explain the effects some other way. Belief is a requirement to even entertain the idea. If I decided before I try to use a microwave that I wanted to understand it so I go to school and study it. Then I get frustrated because it is just more complicated than I have the ability to completely understand right now and I realize I need more school and more study. If I let my lack of ability to understand it become a prerequisite for using it then there would be many things like it that I would have to miss out on. There are things we believe because of faith in ourselves and things we believe because of faith in others. Ultimately even faith in ourselves plays a role in choosing to have faith in others. There is a famous phrase from Des Cartes "I think therefore I am". Although after giving this some thought I think a better statement would be "I believe therefore I am". Belief is the foundation of knowledge. So my point here is that understanding is not the foundation of knowledge, but belief is... and that it is possible to believe without understanding everything. Even the things we do understand about life and the world, we understand by faith in our own ability to perceive what is true and what is false. So if I tell you there is a great cosmic microwave that you can use if you just believe, you would probably laugh. But more accurately I might say there is a friend that you can know who's name is Jesus even though you cannot see him with your eyeballs, you can and will learn to see him with your heart over time IF you believe that you can. Why does this seem to sound really cheesy at some level kind of like Christmas stories that say Santa will come if you just believe in the spirit of Christmas? Or some silly children's gag. This is related to the fact that we are in a world at war and that there are spiritual forces who would love for you to believe that the idea of knowing Jesus is as silly as believing in Santa Claus or fairies. But unlike these mythical things we have first hand testimonies from people today as well as written words in the Bible from verifiably not really that long ago of people who have known and trusted Jesus. But ultimately whether or not you yourself can know Jesus is a matter of whether you are willing to choose to believe in the possiblity of knowing him. You may argue isn't it just a state of mind then? But, really, knowing anything is just a state of mind.
The definition of your mind's state is directly related to what you've chosen to believe as truth (aka "world view"). Do you really know your mother or wife or is it just a figment of your imagination. Are you just having some amazingly detailed and realistic hallucination? If you really began to believe that how would it affect how you began to relate to your wife or mother? Isn't it true that eventually over time you wouldn't have much of a "relationship" at all but rather you would quite likely try to ignore them. Why is this? Because deep down you don't really believe that what you see and experience with them is the truth. You don't believe it is real. In the same way you must truly believe Jesus is real to have relationship with him and know him. How do we decide who to trust? We decide based on how trustworthy they have been to us and continue to be. The same is true with Jesus. "It is impossible for God to lie." (Heb 6:18) The Bible and Christians communicate a message of hope to the world. They communicate a testimony of a man named Jesus whom all have an opportunity to know, if they are willing to believe.

"...we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf." (Heb 6:18b-20a)


Matthew 11:27-28 (words of Jesus)
"All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."