Knowing God

Knowing Jesus starts with believing what has been written about Him in the scriptures, and believing what He has said. If you have that, then it is a matter of living by it, obeying it. We know Him when we believe and obey, and we lose a sense of relatedness to Him when we allow our belief to wane and when we disobey. Start by reading the scriptures, the gospels, the New Testament, and believing it in true faith, acting on it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I told you how to know Christ, which is what you asked. Describing feelings won't do it. The only way to meet Christ is in the Bible -- believing it -- there is no other way. You have to know who it is you want to know before you can know him, otherwise whatever feelings you get may not be Christ at all. AND you must be born again.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The reason I pointed PTB to the Bible was that he didn't refer to it, or to church experience or to anything except the name Jesus, which unfortunately is a name that has been falsely appropriated by many, including many cults, and it is even said in those contexts that they "know" him, or "have a relationship" with him, although if their knowledge about him is wrong it is simply not the case that they know him, it's some form of deception. (They also claim to get it from the Bible of course so there's no way out of this dilemma in the end).I would agree that you don't have to know the Bible thoroughly if you have a basic sense of who Jesus is, but your view of Jesus does have to be Biblical, at least based on good Biblical preaching, otherwise "knowing" him isn't going to have any genuine foundation. And, of course, you have to believe it. Believing it is the start of knowing him in my experience.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The problem with your analysis is that Iano has the same Biblical understanding of Jesus that I have, and is far from supporting any of the cultist Jesuses. When he said you don't have to read the Bible he was simply emphasizing that knowing Jesus is something that we have apart from the Bible, through experience, through personal communication with him, etc, but it is nevertheless Jesus as revealed in the Bible and taught by the orthodox Bible-believing churches he is talking about.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

No, because Washington and Lincoln are finite human beings who are dead. Jesus can be known because he is the living God, all-knowing and present everywhere at once. There's no problem there to be discussed. I gave my view of it, which you are free to ignore -- preferably politely if you can bring yourself to do so.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The OP asks how to know Jesus. The opinion that one can't know Jesus at all is really off-topic. Obviously the questioner wants to know what people mean when they say they know Jesus.

I may be joining this thread a bit late and missing something, but I have the impression that you are reading something into the "childlike" element here that may be keeping you from understanding it. As if we are to be reduced to children in every possible way. But I think the idea is merely that there is absolutely no way we can do anything without God to further our spiritual lives, it all has to come from Him. This doesn't render us infantile, it simply means that in all things we look to Him for the supplies and the abilities. Your quote about fruit is apropos. All fruit comes from abiding in Him, which is about drawing the power from Him, since we have none in ourselves. The process of growing up spiritually doesn't imply independence at any point, but better ability to draw on God and better ability to reject our own natural fleshly attempts to do-it-yourself. There is no loss of competence implied, but a steady gaining of competence in the things of the spirit, all through connectedness to the Source who supplies it. The most competent believers are the most dependent on God. There is no such thing as a self that is independent of God, or at least a self that can do anything right.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.