I believe many Christians go through life without really knowing who Jesus is or experiencing Him. They claim Him as their Lord and Savior – which He is – but like God the Father, He seems distant, and largely unknowable. I realize this may sound harsh and might even offend some, so let me explain what I mean.
If you look up the definition of “know,” you’ll see two meanings. One is to be aware of through observation, inquiry, or information. The second is to have developed a relationship with (someone) through meeting and spending time with them; to be familiar or friendly with. When I say that most Christians do not really know Jesus, I’m referring to this second meaning. They may well pray to Him, but never hear from Him. They may know about Him, but they don’t know Him.
Now, if this describes you, I have good news. According to the Bible, you really can know Jesus in a personal way, for He promises to reveal Himself to you. But, there is a catch. Or better said, there are a few prerequisites for this to take place.
Why many Christians do not really know Jesus
I see three reasons why many Christians do not know Jesus that well, if at all.
The first is ignorance. Let me give you an example. When I was in high school many years ago, I attended a Methodist church. The minister of that church told a great many interesting stories in his sermons, but he never told me how a person becomes a Christian, and he never told me how a person can know (or experience a relationship with) Jesus. I’m sure there are many churches today where the same thing happens, and for Christians who attend those churches, they simply may not know that they can know Jesus in a personal way.
The second is apathy. I don’t like having to say this, but I believe far too many Christians are apathetic when it comes to growing spiritually. Their mindset is, “I’m saved, I made it, and yes, I’ll go to church and pray and read my Bible periodically, thereby meeting my quota of things a good Christian should do, but don’t ask me to change how I live, or to join a Bible study, or anything like that.”
The third is not knowing how. I’m sure there are some Christians who long to know Jesus better, but don’t know how to.
What you must do for Jesus to reveal Himself to you
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” John 14:21
According to the gospel book of John, Jesus will show Himself to you (the NLT says “reveal”) if you do two things, though I’m going to mention three.
First – and John does not mention this, but it’s something one must do – you’ve got to want it. As I mentioned above, I believe too many Christians are content with where they are at spiritually, and don’t actively seek a relationship with Jesus. If you want a relationship with Him, you must seek Him out.
The second thing you must do is love Him. Now, one would think that, for Christians, loving Jesus is easy, but from my experience, it is not. I have long sought to know about Jesus, and I have done this by studying the Bible. Also, I revere Him, and I show this by praying to Him, seeking to do what pleases Him, and (periodically) confessing my sins to Him. In addition, I greatly appreciate what He did to save me from my sins, and I’ve told Him this (though not near enough). But when it comes to loving Him – truly loving Him – I have found that hard to do. I have had to ask Him to help me love Him, and on occasion I’ve told Him that I love Him. But it’s clearly an area I need to work on.
The third thing you must do is obey Him out of your love for Him. This also is something easier said than done. I believe many Christians may claim to obey Him, but when pressed on this, have to backtrack a little. Why? Because they don’t specifically know what He wants them to do.
If you read the New Testament, you will come across a number of verses where Jesus commands His disciples to do certain things. Many of these commands can be applied to believers today. Rather than take the time to look up a number of these, I found a list on CARM.org, and copied most of them here:
- Repent
- Enter (heaven) through the narrow gate
- Follow Him
- Seek God’s Kingdom first
- Love God
- Love one another
- Love and pray for your enemies
- Let your light shine
- Treat people as you want to be treated
- Don’t Lust
- Be on guard against greed
- Forgive Seven times Seventy
- Keep guard against sin
- Make Disciples
- Invite the poor
- Beware of false prophets
It’s probably best not to view these items as a checklist of things you have to do, but rather examples of things you want to do because of your love for Jesus and desire to please Him. In other words, the focus should remain on Him, and as you love Him more and more, you will naturally do more and more of the things in this list.
An Example of Jesus revealing Himself to me
Now, some of you may be asking, “Has Jesus revealed Himself to you? If so, how?”
While it does not happen as often as I’d like it to, it generally works like this:
- In the morning I pray to God the Father or Jesus, and ask Him to reveal Himself to me in a way that I can understand.
- Before or after that prayer, I read several chapters or verses in the Bible, and may focus on a certain topic, such as repentance, or forgiveness, etc. I’ll usually have a number of prayer requests too.
- During the day, I actively look for signs or evidence of God speaking to me about what I had read or requested in my prayer.
- Most of my “coincidences” have come from hearing a sermon or message on Christian radio that directly relates to what I had read or prayed about.
Over the past few years, I have had a number (couple dozen?) “coincidences” that I believe go beyond pure chance to provide evidence for God the Father or God the Son responding to me in a way that I can understand. Because these had been occurring fairly regularly for a time, I decided to start an answers to prayer journal to record them. Below is a recent excerpt from this journal:
September 11, 2019 – the past few days I’ve been studying the thieves on the cross with Jesus, and this morning I asked God to reveal Himself to me (and to members of our family). While driving in the car this morning, I listened to a message by Pastor Jeffries who just so happened to be speaking about this particular story. He also talked about Lazarus and the rich person, with one going to heaven and the other hell. This made me think of the same contrast between the two thieves that I had been studying – one will go to heaven and the other hell. It also made me think of the rich man who wanted someone to tell his brothers so that they would repent, and how repentance is an important part of my observations about why the one thief was saved and the other was not. Of all the sermons I could have heard today, it just happened to be one that specifically related to what I’ve been trying to understand, and it helped me understand it better.
An added bonus/blessing
Now, if you are willing to love Jesus and obey Him, He promises not only to reveal Himself to you, but He and God the Father will love you (in a special way), and dwell (make their home) with you. What could be better than that?!
Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. John 14:23
Conclusion
If you want to know Jesus in a personal way, and have a relationship with Him, you must love and obey Him. When you do this, He promises to reveal Himself to you. He also promises that He and God the Father will love you, and make their home with you. Unfortunately, because of ignorance, apathy or other reasons, too many Christians miss out on these wonderful promises, and as a result, live their life without really knowing the One who saved them. Let that not be you!
Salvation Summaries 
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