Knowing God Personally

Knowing God personally begins at salvation. By God’s grace and through His Son Jesus Christ, I am His child. In the book of Romans, we see God’s plan of salvation laid out.

·                                 Romans 3:23, ” ²³For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” God created this world perfect, but gave man a choice whether to obey Him or not. If God had not given us this choice, we would have been like robots forced to serve Him. Man chose to disobey Him, “sin.” This sin came between us and God. As the verse indicates, we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. We can’t measure up to God’s standard or goodness.

·                                 Romans 3:10-18 “10As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 13Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: 14Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: 15Their feet are swift to shed blood: 16Destruction and misery are in their ways: 17And the way of peace have they not known: 18There is no fear of God before their eyes.” These verses describe sin quite vividly. Anything that is against God’s law is sin. Can any of us keep the ten commandmentsfrom birth to the grave? That is impossible. Breaking even one of these commandments means that we are a sinner and not worthy of God.

·                                 Romans 6:23, ” ²³For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” So far, this is looking fairly bleak. The payment for sin is death - both physical death and spiritual death (separation from God forever). BUT, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

·                                 Romans 5:8, ” 8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”God loved us so much even as we were disobeying Him that He sacrificed His sinless, perfect Son to take my punishment and yours! Jesus then conquered death and rose again! What wondrous love is this!

·                                 Romans 10:9-10, ” 9That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” What do we have to “do” for this salvation? Believe. Good works, church attendance, giving to the poor do not get you to Heaven. Confessing and believing that God hath raised Him from the dead.

·                                 Romans 10:13, ” ¹³For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Anyone who trusts Christ as Saviour is saved!

·                                 Romans 5:1, “1Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:” Salvation results in peace with God through Christ. We are no longer His enemies.

·                                 Romans 8:1, ” 1There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” No condemnation. Christ paid our sin-debt.

·                                 Romans 8:38-39, “38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing can separate us from His love!

(Interested in knowing more? Here is a great site.)

Once you have become His child through salvation, you learn to know Him more through His Word and through prayer.