Do You Really Know Him?

There is a question that has been troubling me.

Not, “Do I believe in God?”

Not, “Do I believe the Bible?”

Not, “Have I been saved?”

Not even, “Am I serving Him?”

The question is far more uncomfortable than that.

Do I really know Him?

I cannot ask you that question without first allowing it to cut through me.

Do I really know Him?

Because I am becoming increasingly convinced that it is possible to spend years around the things of God and still remain strangely unfamiliar with God Himself.

I can know Scripture and not know His heart.

I can understand theology and not recognize His whisper.

I can preach about His presence and still neglect His presence.

I can pray publicly and have almost no secret history with Him.

I can learn the language of revival, glory, anointing, authority, warfare, destiny and calling—and somewhere in the middle of all that vocabulary lose the simplicity of knowing Jesus.

And that frightens me.

Because I do not want to become an expert in the things surrounding God while slowly becoming a stranger to God.

Paul had revelations most of us can scarcely imagine. He had encounters. He had apostolic authority. He had suffered for the Gospel. He had planted churches. He had seen miracles.

And yet his cry was still:

“That I may know Him.”

After everything, Paul was still hungry.

That confronts me.

Because perhaps one of the greatest evidences that I truly know Him is that I am still desperate to know Him more.

The more I see Him, the more I realize how little I have seen.

The more I hear Him, the more I hunger for His voice.

The more I encounter Him, the less satisfied I become with merely talking about encounters.

There is something deeply dangerous about becoming satisfied with what I already know about God.

Familiarity can become an enemy.

I can become so accustomed to Scripture that I no longer tremble when I read it.

So accustomed to worship that I sing without wonder.

So accustomed to prayer that I speak without listening.

So accustomed to ministry that I can function without dependency.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest dangers facing the Church.

We can learn how to do Christianity without God.

We know when to sing.

We know when to stand.

We know when to preach.

We know how to organize meetings, conferences, programs and ministries.

We know how to make announcements.

We know how to produce sermons.

We know how to fill calendars.

But if the Holy Spirit quietly withdrew from much of what we do, would we even notice?

That question bothers me.

Because I never want to become so skilled at ministry that I no longer need God to do it.

I never want yesterday’s anointing to become today’s substitute for intimacy.

I never want what God once said to become an excuse for not asking what He is saying now.

I never want to live on the memory of His presence.

I want Him.

Not merely what He can give me.

Not merely what He can do through me.

Not merely the doors He can open.

Not merely the prayers He can answer.

Not merely the healing He can release.

Not merely the ministry He can bless.

I want Him.

And I have to ask myself another painful question:

If God gave me nothing else, would I still want Him?

If there were no platform, would I seek Him?

If no one ever heard me preach again, would I seek Him?

If there were no applause, no recognition, no visible fruit, no title and no opportunity, would Jesus Himself still be enough?

Because knowing God is not using God to reach another destination.

He is the destination.

Jesus said that eternal life is to know the Father and Jesus Christ whom He sent.

That means eternal life is not merely about going somewhere when I die.

It is about entering into relationship with Someone now.

To know Him.

To walk with Him.

To hear Him.

To love Him.

To obey Him.

And here is where this becomes uncomfortable.

I cannot separate knowing Him from obeying Him.

We have created a strange Christianity if we imagine that we can deeply know Jesus while consistently resisting what He says.

Jesus said:

“If you love Me, keep My commandments.”

Obedience does not purchase His love.

Obedience reveals mine.

And sometimes I wonder whether I have called something “relationship” that Jesus would call resistance.

I can sing, “I surrender all,” and still have locked rooms in my heart.

I can tell Him, “You are Lord,” while quietly negotiating the areas where I do not want Him to interfere.

My reputation.

My money.

My relationships.

My ambitions.

My wounds.

My habits.

My plans.

My need to be understood.

My need to be right.

My future.

My comfort.

My hidden compromises.

And then I say, “Lord, why do You seem distant?”

Perhaps sometimes He is not distant at all.

Perhaps I am holding onto something that keeps me from moving closer.

I think about Isaiah.

Isaiah already knew about God.

He was already prophetic.

He already had spiritual language.

And then Isaiah saw Him.

“High and lifted up.”

The temple shook.

The seraphim cried:

“Holy, holy, holy.”

And Isaiah did not respond by announcing how anointed he was.

He said:

“Woe is me! For I am undone.”

That is what troubles me about genuine encounters with God.

They do not simply make me feel powerful.

They expose me.

When I truly see His holiness, I stop comparing myself with everyone else.

I stop saying, “At least I’m better than him.”

“At least I didn’t do what she did.”

“At least my ministry is growing.”

“At least people respect me.”

All those measurements collapse when God enters the room.

There is only holiness.

His.

And there is me.

Undone.

But thank God Isaiah’s story did not end with “Woe is me.”

The coal from the altar touched him.

He was cleansed.

Then came the voice:

“Whom shall I send?”

This is important.

Presence came before commission.

Cleansing came before sending.

Encounter came before assignment.

We often want God to send us before we have allowed Him to undo us.

We want authority without surrender.

Anointing without crushing.

Power without purity.

Commission without the coal.

But God is interested in more than what I can do for Him.

He is interested in who I am becoming before Him.

And I wonder whether we have sometimes substituted activity for intimacy because activity is easier.

Activity can make me feel productive.

Intimacy makes me vulnerable.

When I am busy for God, I can hide.

When I am alone with God, there is nowhere to hide.

No microphone.

No congregation.

No title.

No one to impress.

Just Him and me.

That is why the secret place is so revealing.

Who am I when nobody sees me pray?

Who am I when there is no sermon to prepare?

Who am I when I am not asking God for something?

Can I sit with Him?

Can I listen?

Can I worship when no one is watching?

Can I open His Word because I want to hear His heart rather than find something to preach?

Do I actually enjoy Him?

That question reaches deep inside me.

Because we live in an age that is terrified of silence.

Within seconds our hands reach for a screen.

A message.

A video.

News.

Social media.

Something.

Anything.

Noise has become the anesthesia of the soul.

And I wonder how many times God wanted to speak after I had already reached for my phone.

How many divine invitations have been drowned beneath notifications?

How many mornings have I given the first attention of my heart to the world before giving it to the One who gave me another day?

I am not declaring technology evil.

I am asking something much more personal:

What has my attention?

Because whatever continually owns my attention will eventually shape my affection.

And whatever shapes my affection will influence my worship.

Maybe the greatest spiritual battle some of us will fight tomorrow morning will not involve rebuking a demon.

Maybe it will involve leaving the phone in another room and closing the door.

“Here I am, Lord.

No audience.

No agenda.

No performance.

I just want You.”

That kind of prayer frightens the flesh because the flesh wants to accomplish something.

God often wants us simply to remain.

“Abide in Me.”

We have turned Christianity into constant movement.

Jesus keeps calling us back to abiding.

And I am discovering that knowing Him requires time.

Not because God is reluctant.

Because relationships require presence.

I cannot deeply know anyone to whom I only give hurried fragments of attention.

Why would I imagine God is different?

I can say, “Lord, You have my whole life,” while giving Him ten distracted minutes between everything else I consider important.

That challenges me.

Because hunger is revealed by what I make room for.

We make room for what we value.

And perhaps I need to stop telling God how hungry I am and allow my calendar to testify.

But I also need to say this carefully.

Knowing Him is not a reward for religious performance.

I cannot earn intimacy with God by spending enough hours praying.

Grace opened this relationship.

The blood of Jesus opened the way.

I come boldly because of Him.

Yet grace does not make me casual.

Grace makes access possible.

And when I understand the price Jesus paid to bring me near, how could I treat that access cheaply?

The veil was torn.

The way is open.

The invitation stands.

And still I can remain outside through distraction, compromise or indifference.

What a tragedy.

The door is open, and I am too busy to enter.

I think one of the most dangerous forms of Christianity is one in which I want Jesus as Savior but resist Him as Lord.

I want forgiveness, but not transformation.

I want promises, but not commands.

I want destiny, but not discipline.

I want resurrection, but I do not want a cross.

Yet Jesus never invited me to decorate my old life with Christianity.

He called me to die.

“Take up your cross and follow Me.”

There is no way to make that comfortable.

Something in me must die if Christ is going to reign.

My self-rule.

My demand to control outcomes.

My insistence on having the last word.

My right to bitterness.

My secret idols.

My agreements with fear.

My need for human approval.

Whatever sits on the throne cannot remain there when Jesus takes His rightful place.

And perhaps that is the real question behind, “Do I know Him?”

Is He Lord?

Because I cannot claim intimacy with Jesus while continually asking Him to remain outside certain rooms.

There must come a moment when I hand Him the keys.

All of them.

“Lord, if You put Your finger on it, it is Yours.

If You expose it, I will repent.

If You ask for it, I will surrender it.

If You tell me to go, I will go.

If You tell me to stay, I will stay.

If You tell me to forgive, I will forgive.

If You tell me to release it, I will release it.

I want You more than I want to win.”

That is where knowing Him becomes real.

And I sense the Lord confronting me with something else.

I must be careful that I do not confuse spiritual experiences with knowing God.

I believe in encounters.

I believe in miracles.

I believe in healing.

I believe in prophecy.

I believe in the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit.

But manifestations are not substitutes for relationship.

I can experience His power and still need to know His heart.

Israel saw miracles almost daily in the wilderness and still repeatedly misunderstood Him.

Moses was different.

Scripture says Israel knew God’s acts, but Moses knew His ways.

That is what I want.

Not merely His acts.

His ways.

I want to know what pleases Him.

What grieves Him.

What He loves.

How He thinks.

How He responds.

I want His heart to transform mine until obedience is not simply something I force myself to do, but increasingly the response of love.

And I do not want this message to become another moment where I feel convicted and then continue unchanged.

I have done that before.

I have heard messages that shook me.

I have prayed emotional prayers.

I have promised God things.

And then ordinary life returned and the urgency faded.

So I am asking myself:

What am I going to do differently?

Not next year.

Not someday.

Today.

Because hunger that never changes my behavior may simply be emotion.

If I really want to know Him, I must seek Him.

“You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

All my heart.

Not the leftover part.

Not the convenient part.

Not the Sunday part.

All.

And perhaps I need to come before Him again with no impressive language.

“Jesus, I have spoken about You.

I have served You.

I have prayed to You.

I have preached You.

But I refuse to assume that yesterday’s relationship is enough for today.

I want to know You.

Expose anything in me that has become religious without being real.

Expose whatever I am hiding behind.

Break my familiarity.

Restore my wonder.

Restore my trembling.

Restore my first love.

Teach me Your ways.

Make me sensitive to Your voice again.

And whatever knowing You costs me, give me grace to surrender it.”

Because at the end of my life, I do not want people merely to say that Peter Nash knew how to preach.

I do not want it merely said that I wrote books, travelled, ministered, prayed for people or carried a message.

I want heaven to be able to say:

He knew Him.

And more importantly:

He was known by Him.

That is the cry rising inside me.

I do not want a Christianity that can exist without Jesus.

I do not want a ministry that can function without Jesus.

I do not want theology without wonder.

Truth without presence.

Power without holiness.

Activity without intimacy.

I do not want to merely tell another generation about a God I studied.

I want to carry the fragrance of Someone I have been with.

So I return to the question.

Not for you first.

For me.

Peter, do you really know Him?

And then I hand the question to you.

Strip away your title.

Strip away your church attendance.

Strip away your theology.

Strip away what people think about you.

Strip away your ministry.

Strip away your experiences.

Strip away every religious answer you know you are supposed to give.

Now stand alone before Jesus.

Do you know Him?

Not, have you heard about Him?

Not, have you prayed a prayer sometime in your past?

Not, can you quote Him?

Not, can you defend Him?

Do you know Him?

When He whispers, do you recognize His voice?

When He corrects you, do you surrender?

When He asks for something precious, do you trust Him enough to release it?

When nobody is watching, do you seek Him?

When He gives you nothing but Himself, is He enough?

I cannot answer those questions for you.

And you cannot answer them for me.

But I know how I want to answer.

I want to know Him.

Really know Him.

And I am no longer satisfied merely knowing more about Him.

I want my heart to burn again.

I want every false god dethroned.

Every hidden room opened.

Every compromise exposed.

Every distraction brought under lordship.

Every part of me surrendered.

Until Jesus is not simply part of my life.

Until Jesus is not even merely first in my life.

Until Jesus becomes the life from which everything else flows.

This is not condemnation.

This is invitation.

The veil is torn.

The door is open.

The Father is calling.

The Spirit is drawing.

Jesus has made the way.

So I am coming again.

Hungry.

Empty.

Without pretending.

Without defending myself.

Without negotiating.

And my prayer has become very simple:

Lord, I do not merely want to know more about You.

I want to know You.

Whatever must die, let it die.

Whatever must change, change it.

Whatever must be surrendered, reveal it.

Whatever must be restored, restore it.

But please, Lord—

do not allow me to spend my life standing near You,

speaking about You,

working for You,

and never truly knowing You.

I want to know You.

And I will not be satisfied with anything less.

Peter Nash