And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. – John 17:3 ESV
People speak of “knowing God.” But what do they mean? Scripture seems to suggest two related ways in which a person can “know God.” In part, knowing God means having a personal relationship with Him. Thanks to Christ’s obedience to the cross we can know God intimately. We can know God in that sense because of what Christ did on the Cross to remove the barrier of sin that separated us from Him. However, knowing God in the sense of having relationship with Him goes hand in hand with another sense of “Knowing’ Him. Centuries before Christ came; Scripture described what the sense of personal intimacy with God would be like.
In Jeremiah 3, the Lord privileged Jeremiah with a vision of a new covenant, in His promise that God’s children would know Him, not just about Him. You can establish a personal relationship with Him right now, by calling out to Him, confessing your own sinfulness, and thanking Him for the forgiveness He extends to you as a result of Jesus’ work on the Cross. He promised that His teaching would go beyond a mere collection of laws; that He Himself would be our teacher. A personal relationship with God is based on a faith in Christ. Be careful claiming to know the Lord if you act as if you’ve never heard of Him.
Submitted by Deaconess Irene Gardon