Being in the Presence of God

When Jesus says to abide in Him, it is easy to focus on His command to us. What we can miss in the process is that Jesus is also revealing that it is His desire to be with us. In effect, the command to abide in Him is not so much a command as it is an invitation. Jesus wants us to experience His presence in an on-going way and He invites us to participate in that very thing. Why? Because He wants to experience our presence.

Knowing God and Knowing God

It is a bit of a shame that English has only one major word for knowing. In the Greek of the New Testament, there are two main words, oida and ginosko. Oida refers to knowing something through an intellectual apprehension of the subject. Ginosko, in contrast, carries with it a sense of experientially knowing something.

So, when the Gospels say that Joseph was not intimate with Mary until after Jesus was born, they say that Joseph did not know (ginosko) her. Likewise, when the woman with the issue of blood felt that she was healed and when Jesus felt the healing power leave him, in both cases, the word used is ginosko. Both the woman and Jesus knew what had occurred not by an intellectual understanding, but by the experience of what just happened.

1 Jn 3:6 states (in part): No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

This verse is puzzling until we understand that the word for know in this verse is ginosko. What John is saying is that the way to overcome sin is to have a life-changing experience of the presence and love of God - to know God by an intimate experience, not just intellectually.

This truth highlights that being a Christian is all about experiencing the love and presence of God. Everything else in the Christian life is the natural result of having developed the habit of being in His presence in a significant, experiential way.

The Problem of Defining God

It is difficult to engage God with our minds unless we establish some framework for conceiving of Him or understanding Him. The problem, however, with trying to understand God is that He is beyond our understanding. As a result, any way we conceive of Him will of necessity limit our understanding of who He is to our definition, even though He is far greater than any definition. Perhaps that is why in the Old Testament He gave the enigmatic answer for who He is: "I AM." Anything else would have placed an artificial limitation on who He is.