Knowing God – Even Better!
- Sep 19, 2025
- 6 min read
Before going back to Ephesians 1, I want to recommend a book to you.
Now, some of you may have a copy of it somewhere on your book shelves. Please dig it out and begin to read it again.
The book is ‘Knowing God’ by J.I. Packer.
Lewis Smedes once said “For years I have been asked to list the ‘top twenty’ Christian books I have read. ‘Knowing God’ has been on that list since the mid-1970s. This volume is Packer at his very best.”
Please note what Elisabeth Elliot said, “The thing that makes Dr. Packer’s writing so vital, practical and credible is that the man lives what he writes. ‘Knowing God’ is the work of a man who does know him; and which makes us want to know him, too—and shows us how.”
I love what Chuck Swindoll said about the book: “Here is a theologian who puts the hay where the sheep can reach it—plainly shows us ordinary folks what it means to know God.”
J.I. Packer himself said, "We are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business, for those who do not know about God. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul."
Check it out! J.I. Packer - ‘Knowing God’ - ISBN 9780340863541
Prayer
Dear Lord, open my heart to be receptive to you and your word. I long for a deeper knowledge of all that you are. I don’t just want to have an intellectual understanding of you. I want to know YOU more!
Guide me closer to you each day, help me to know your voice and respond when you call. Strengthen me to walk in your will and live a life that honours you. In His name, amen.
Notice in verse 17 that Paul doesn’t pray that you have a comfortable life. He’s not praying that your job gets better. He’s not praying that you avoid persecution.
Paul prays that we "may know God better." That we grow in the knowledge of God. Actually, I think this is a matter of urgency!
Becoming a Christian is just the beginning, not the end, of growing in the knowledge of God. So how much do you know God?
Is your church aptly described as a community of people striving to grow in the knowledge of God? Do you desire to know God? That is, learning to love God in everything and place Him at the centre of your life?
I’m challenged by Wayne Grudem’s illustration:
Imagine a jigsaw puzzle and the picture you are putting together is this, “What the whole Bible teaches us today about everything.” A course in systematic theology would be like filling in the border and some of the major items pictured in the puzzle. (Systematic theology often starts with the doctrine of God.)
Then other courses, like the Bible Course (Bible Society), would perhaps help fill in a few more details of the jigsaw. (By the way, it's not about knowing more about God; it's about knowing God more.)
Then you go on in the Christian life, through your life of prayer and studying the Bible. You spend time listening to God through the word of God being preached, or reading good study books. All the time you are adding pieces to the jigsaw. You are building up your grasp of what the whole Bible teaches about everything. Then you discover to your amazement that the more pieces you fit in, the better your grasp of the picture and the easier it is to fit new pieces in and live this amazing, radical, life-changing Christian life!
So, how’s the jigsaw coming along? Still fitting in the borders? Or, can you say, I know God better today than I did a month ago, a year ago? Can you honestly say, I know Him better in truth, in heart, and in daily experience. I know Him better in my private devotions, worship and prayer and as I live out my faith life each day?
Jesus, be the centre; Be my source, be my light Jesus;
Jesus, be the centre; Be my hope, be my song;
Jesus Be fire in my heart;
the wind in these sails the reason I live -
Jesus.
Do you need some help in discovering what this might mean?
Then notice further what Paul goes on to pray in Ephesians 1:18-19: “I ask that your minds may be opened to see his light, so that you will know what is the hope to which he has called you, [know] how rich are the wonderful blessings he promises his people, and [know] how very great is his power at work in us who believe. This power working in us is the same as the mighty strength.”
Here's a clear indication that we are getting to know Him better!
a. Might know the HOPE to which you’ve been called.
b. Might know the RICHES of his inheritance. (Who we are in Christ.)
c. Might know His incomparably great POWER.
A. W. Tozer says: "The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him."
Let’s go back to verse 17. Paul doesn't pray that we will know more about God, although knowing more about God is important. He doesn't pray that we would obey God more, although obeying God is important. He prays that we will 'know God better.'
Let me make the obvious point, knowing Him and knowing about Him are two different things!
Paul says that we have a personal relationship with God, and the point is not what we can get from that relationship. The point of the relationship is God Himself. He is more valuable than even His gifts. And our chief end is that we would know Him better, glorify Him more, and enjoy Him forever.
An encounter with God will always be an invitation to join Him in something He is doing or longs to do! But we can and must prepare for encountering God by making our relationship with God our top priority.
An amazing verse on ‘knowing God’ is Jerermiah 31:34: “No longer will they teach their neighbour, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
The Hebrew word used for ‘know’ is ‘yada.’ The best way of defining it is “to know completely and to be completely known.”
'Yada' is to know something or someone in complete detail; knowing God by personal experience, having a face-to-face encounter, the mingling of souls, the very depth of heart-to-heart intimacy.
Are you ready to experience God’s presence, power, and person in ways you’ve never imagined? Then allow this to be an invitation to come and encounter God in such a way that will transform your life. Through His Word, through prayer, through personal experience of Him by His Spirit, God longs to draw us closer to Himself.
I wonder what extraordinary things God has in store as we come into a divine experience and encounter Him afresh!
Meeting Him must be a life-changing event, or look at it another way, you can’t encounter the all-powerful, all-gracious, all-loving God and not be changed!
The God of this universe doesn't just want stuff from you. He wants YOU! He wants you to know Him; to engage your mind, will, and emotions in your encounter with Him; to relate to Him; to walk with Him and to live out all that He shares and teaches us on this amazing journey.
Hear what C.H. Spurgeon said when he preached one day at the age of 20:
“The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father…It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep that our pride is drowned in its infinity…
Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the deity.”
Stop and try and take this in!
Our relationship with Father God should be an intimate daily, deepening, desiring and developing walk with Him.
Let me take you back to J.I. Packer’s book, ‘Knowing God’.
Packer asks a series of questions:
What were we made for? To know God.
What aim should we set for ourselves in life? To know God.
What is the eternal life that Jesus gives? Knowledge of God (John 17:3).
What brings more joy, delight and contentment, than anything else? Knowledge of God (Jer 9:23)
Knowing God is not a voluntary part of your Christian life; it is your Christian life!
Eugene Peterson stated, “We do not know God by defining him but by being loved by him and loving in return.”
My prayer is we will all ‘know God better!'
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