Sometimes learning about God is not what we need
Several years ago, I knew a fellow who was always studying the Bible. He was always learning more about God. He’d look up every little detail about whatever topic he was researching. He knew a lot about God. He could always quote verses from the Bible that seemed appropriate for almost any situation.
But all this knowledge about God was mostly in his head. Very little of it had made it into his heart. And even less had seeped out into his daily life in the way he treated others or how he saw himself.
And he didn’t really feel God’s love for him. Oh, he could talk about the fact that God loved him but he didn’t feel it. And when he told others that God loved them, they didn’t feel it either.
I don’t know if you’ve ever felt this way, but I have.
Just one more Bible verse…
In the past, I have sometimes thought: if I just read another chapter in the Bible, if I look up a few more verses in the concordance, if I can just find that one new idea about God that I need, then my problem will be solved, then I’ll be healed.
Now, I must say, there have been times when I have been earnestly studying the Bible and praying about a particular problem, when I came across a verse or passage that was very inspiring and helpful. In fact, I’ve had many “Aha!” moments during my Bible study and prayer time over the years.
But there have been many other times when I have endlessly looked up countless Bible verses trying to find the one thing that will solve my problem, and it’s all just a bunch of words. It’s more of an intellectual process of me trying to figure things out.
Sometimes it’s the same with my prayers. They just seem like words.
“You know enough”
I heard a speaker at church many years ago talk about how we often go about praying when we have a problem.
She said, we look up Bible verses on the topic. We think we need to find one particular idea or verse in the Bible that will be like a key to unlock the solution to our problem or be the answer to our prayer.
If we’re not healed or don’t find an answer to our problem, we think we need to study the Bible more earnestly, to dig really deep into the Word. And sometimes that might be part of the answer, she said.
She pointed out that we focus too much on trying to learn more about God. She said, “You already know enough about God and His love. It’s time to be quiet and just feel God’s love.
Here words have stayed with me 35 years later.
You can’t find God by searching
There are lots of places in the Bible that bring out this point, that we can’t find God just by human effort searching for Him.
always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 2 Timothy 3:7 NKJV
The book of Job asks this question:
Can you search out the deep things of God? Job 11:7 NKJV
And Isaiah brings this point out:
Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the LORD,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable. Isaiah 40:28 NKJV
How can we learn about God?
Well, If we can’t search out the deep things of God, if His understanding is unsearchable, how are we supposed to learn about God?
First, it’s not necessarily about endless Bible study.
Sometimes we need to just take one single Bible verse or passage, and ponder it over and over, for days and weeks, to make it our own, to let it sink down in our hearts and permeate our daily lives, before it transforms us.
Sometimes we need to just read a whole book in the Bible to get the overall sense of what’s going on and the message in it.
And sometimes we just need to close the Bible, get out of our prayer chairs, go out into the community, and live the ideas we’ve been learning about in our Bible study.
Learning about love versus learning to love
It’s one thing to learn, from your Bible study, that you should love your neighbor as yourself, but it’s another thing altogether to actually go out into the world and feel genuine love for your neighbor and treat them accordingly.
Learning about the need to love your neighbor does not automatically mean that you will express love to them. We need to experience what it feels like to love our neighbors. We need to put that love into practice.
And so it is with getting to know God.
It is never enough just to study to Bible and learn about God. We need to experience God’s presence.
The fellow I mentioned at the beginning of this episode could say the words, “God is love.” But he had not experienced the meaning of that truth in his own life.
And yet, he kept up his relentless regimen of Bible study, always hoping to learn some new thing about God.
How not to learn about God
As I’ve said before on The Bible Speaks to You Podcast, we cannot search for, discover, or communicate with God through the human intellect or the five material senses.
Paul brings this out in
But as it is written:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” [quoted from Isaiah 64:4] 1 Corinthians 2:9 NKJV
In this verse, Paul is explaining how we don’t find God with the eyes, the ears, even the heart of man. But in the next verse he makes it clear how we do find and know God.
How to know God
But God has revealed them [the things He has prepared for us ] to us through His Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:10 NKJV
In other words, the only way to really know God is by God revealing Himself to us. You can learn about God through reading the Bible, and God can reveal Himself to you through the Bible, as well as countless other ways.
But I’m going to say it again, the only way to really know God and experience His presence is through God’s revelation of Himself to you, however that happens.
Does that mean we just sit around on a hill top looking at the clouds float by waiting for God to talk to us?
No, but that could be a place to hear what God is telling you. But it’s not about the place. It’s about the humility and receptivity in your heart, your desire to do what is good and loving, a sincere desire to know God.
Does God talk to us?
Now you may feel like God has not revealed Himself to you directly, that he doesn’t talk to you.
A Sunday School teacher in the church I grew up in said to me one time, God doesn’t talk to us today like He did to people in the Bible. We have the Bible and that’s all we need.
I disagree with that. In fact, I did a whole episode on The Bible Speaks to You Podcast about this a while back, Episode 39: Does God Still Talk to Us Today?
God does talk to us today. Why don’t we always hear His voice?
Basically because we’re preoccupied with ourselves, our problems, the fears and worries of this material world.
How to experience God’s presence
Fortunately there are ways to clear away these distractions so we are more receptive to God’s voice and revelations.
Sometimes the best way to experience God’s love is to do something loving for someone else, or maybe even for yourself, if you been treating yourself poorly.
When you express unselfish love for someone, it opens up the heart and makes you more receptive to hearing God’s voice, and feeling God’s love for you.
And sometimes, when I’m dealing with someone, I like to ask the question, “How would Jesus love this person?”
That has helped me many times to love someone with so much more than just my human love. And when I have done that, I feel God’s love for me shine through.
Learning about God versus knowing God
So how do we get to know God and not just learn more about God?
There are so many ways to get to know God. But first and foremost we need a sincere and humble desire to know God on His terms instead of our preconceptions of what and who we may think God is.
It’s also about becoming aware of the fact you have a relationship with God. God is creator, you are creation. God is Parent, you are child. God is the cause, you are the effect. God is Love, you are the expression of love.
It’s important not to get those roles mixed up. Sometimes people start thinking they are the creator, they are the source of love, they are the ones who have to make things happen.
But the more you become aware that God is your source, and that you are not the source of who you are or your abilities, you will become more aware of your relationship with God and cherish it.
Your relationship with God
Think about how you get to know someone you want to have a relationship with. It’s not about just getting information about that person. And you don’t just talk about your problems over and over. You ask questions. You spend time together. You ask for and offer help when needed. And all kinds of other things.
We can use that same model with getting to know God better.
Don’t just dump all your problems on God. Have a conversation. Ask for help with a problem or something you don’t understand. Listen for the answers. Tell God everything you’re grateful for. Ask God what He wants you to do in a particular situation. Ask God how He sees a person or a situation. Ask God how to love the way He does.
This is just a starter list of things you can talk to God about that will help you get to know God better, to experience His presence in your life.
Jesus knew his relationship with God
Jesus was very conscious of his relationship with God. It was a very intimate relationship.
Why? Because, as I say so often on this podcast, Jesus didn’t have his own agenda. He didn’t come to do his will or promote himself. Jesus always turned people back to God as the source of who he was and what he did.
And we can follow his example.
As a child of God, your identity is already complete as God’s image and likeness. Spiritually, you have all that is rightfully yours as an inheritance from God, as a joint-heir with Christ. (See Romans 8:17 below)
All too often, when we are always trying to learn more about God through endless study and learning, we are operating from the assumption, there is something missing, that there’s something we don’t have.
You already have all you need spiritually
But because you are a joint-heir with Christ, it doesn’t say you will be a joint heir, you already have everything you need.
If we are always striving to achieve something that is already inherently ours, we’ll never realize we have it.
If we’re always trying to learn more about God, and not living what we do know of God’s love and presence in our lives, we’ll always think we’re missing something. We’ll never be satisfied or at peace with our spiritual growth and we’ll never think we’re doing enough or that we’re good enough. We’ll always want to learn or be something more.
But endless learning about God is not the goal, or at least, it shouldn’t be.
The goal is to take what you have experienced of God’s love in your life and let that love shine out into the world. Jesus said for good reason,
You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Matthew 5:14 NKJV
Light doesn’t have to learn how to be light
The light doesn’t have to study hard to learn more about how to be light or how to shine.
If you’re studying the Bible all the time, always trying to learn something new about God, or a particular character or event, something Jesus said or did, or how Paul addressed a certain problem in one of the early churches, (and all that is important in their place) it may be time to shift your perspective.
You don’t need to learn more about God right now. You know enough already.
We simply need to experience God’s presence more.
We need to feel and experience God’s love for us, not just learn about it.
We need to practice being in God’s presence.
Being in God’s presence
How would you act if you were 100% aware that God was right with you as you got dressed each morning, ate breakfast, went to work or school, did your errands, took care of your family.
I’ll say it again, we need to practice being in God’s presence. Actually we always are, I guess what I’m trying to say is we need to practice being aware of being in God’s presence.
We need to get out of our human intellectualism and reside more in the Spirit.
Studying the Bible is important, don’t get me wrong. But we need to make sure our Bible study is guided by the Holy Spirit and not the human intellect.
Sometimes we need less of the letter and more or the Spirit. We need the right balance.
If we just keep studying the Bible, learning more about God, or anything in the Bible, and don’t do something with what we’re learning, don’t put the ideas into action in our lives, we’ll never be satisfied.
It’s time to close your Bible
Now this may sound a little odd, on a podcast and website about the Bible, but here goes.
Close your Bible.
Instead, think of one aspect of God’s nature, and something you have discovered in the Bible, which brings that out. It could be a verse or just a phrase. Write it down on a piece of paper or a card if you want to.
Now, just ponder that aspect of God’s nature. It could be simply the quality of love, grace, or mercy. Maybe it’s divine justice or wisdom. Or God’s protection and healing power. What stands out to you? What resonates with you?
Take that one idea and then see how you can reflect that quality in the way you think and act and how you see and treat other people.
Beyond learning about God
If you ever felt a yearning in your heart to know God more closely, you are in very good company. Even Jesus’s disciples, after three years of following him and witnessing all he did, realized their need to know God better.
If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!”
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” John 14:7, 8 NLT
They still think they’re missing something.
Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? John 14:9 NLT
If you read this one way, it sounds like Jesus is saying he is the Father. But when you look at it a little closer, along with all Jesus says about his relationship with the Father in other places, it becomes clear that Jesus is a living transparency of God’s nature.
Jesus is the full representation of God.
Jesus is saying to his disciples that by looking at him, they will see or understand who and what the Father is.
Because, Jesus only said and did what God told him to say and do.
The best way to know God
So if you insist you really want to know God better, explore the life of Jesus, what he said, how he acted, how he treated others. Then you will see God, or rather understand more about who God really is.
Then go and do likewise. Follow Jesus’s example.
To the degree you live your life the way Jesus lived and loved, you will not just know about God, you will know God intimately and be in a covenant relationship with Him.
That is God’s will for all His children.
He declares in Jeremiah,
“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Jeremiah 31:33 NKJV
This is God revealing Himself to His children.
“No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” Jeremiah 31:34 NKJV
That is God’s promise: We shall all know God.
This is your divine birthright, your spiritual inheritance. It is yours to claim this very moment.
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Mentioned this week: Episode 39: Does God Still Talk to Us Today?
If you have questions or comments please contact me. I’d love to hear from you..
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James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.
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Bible References
2 Timothy 3:7 NKJV
7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Job 11:7 NKJV
7 Can you search out the deep things of God?
Isaiah 40:28 NKJV
28 Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the LORD,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
1 Corinthians 2:9, 10 NKJV
9 But as it is written:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” [quoted from Isaiah 64:4]
Romans 8:17 KJV
17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
Matthew 5:14 NKJV
14 You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.
John 14:7-9 NLT
7 If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
9 Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you?
Jeremiah 31:33, 34 NKJV
33 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
34 “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
