KNOWING HIM

1John 2:3-6
“3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.”
As a child setting in the “Kings Army” Sunday school class our teacher taught us this about learning. He said, “We have not learned until we are able to do what we have been taught.”
There is an extreme difference in knowing much about something and truly knowing it because we have experienced it firsthand. This is the kind of knowing the Psalmist speaks of with Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God…” This word “know” in the Hebrew language is “yada.” Yada did not mean the knowing we get from information fed to us by the way of reading, or oral expression. Yada meant to know by an encounter or to know from experience. Therefore, God is telling us to stop being so busy with our own efforts so we may encounter Him or experience Him firsthand.
Be still and encounter me says the Lord. The highest frequency in the spirit is silence and the quickest achievement in the spirit is stillness. If we can stop adding our own ideas and opinions and stop being so busy with our own efforts, we may find God is more willing to manifest Himself with encounters teaching us from His perspective who He really is. This is not to say inquiry is wrong; we must search for God with our whole heart and understand knowledge is not what we are truly searching for; it is what knowledge becomes as a result of the search. It is what our knowledge becomes as we encounter Him in all of life’s episodes.
Consequently, keeping His commandments becomes a manifestation of knowing Him. It is not keeping His commandments that we know Him; it is because we know Him we are motivated to keep His commandments.