Most people don’t know God except for how He’s portrayed in the Old Testament. They may have a shallow, intellectual knowledge about Him, but lack a genuine, personal relationship with Him. They read about an angry, vengeful God who punishes and curses people, and therefore fear Him. However, to truly know God, we must see Him in the context of Jesus Christ.

Knowing God is a Transformational Experience

Getting to know God transforms us from the inside out—not by rules, rituals, or formulas, but through spending time with Him. It’s entirely possible to believe in God or know about Him but remain distant from His heart and unaware of His true nature. The God revealed through Jesus isn’t eager to punish, but is the essence of love. He’s overflowing with mercy, grace, and healing, and He’s inviting us into His presence.

Knowing God’s nature under the new covenant delivers us from performance-based Christianity. When the people refused to accept Jesus, and His disciples asked Him if they should call down fire from heaven the way Elisha did under the old covenant, He rebuked them. They had the wrong impression of Him because they still saw Him through the lens of the law. Only when we know God as He is now can we receive from Him. “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature…” (2 Peter 1:3, 4, NLT).

How We Perceive God Matters

Everything we could possibly need, whether it’s healing, peace, joy, provision, or strength, comes not through effort or performance, but through knowing God. Relationship, not simply attending church weekly to check off a punch list of requirements, is the key. This punctuates the importance of being with Him so that we won’t come away with an Old-Testament knowledge of Him that no longer applies.   

How we perceive God shapes our entire spiritual experience. “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). If we believe that God is harsh or distant, we’ll approach Him with fear, doubt, or apathy. This inner perception governs our expectations. If we expect little from God, that’s likely all we’ll receive, not because He’s withholding, but because we aren’t open to trusting Him.

This is critically important. If we have the wrong impression of God, we’ll expect the wrong things from Him. Thinking He’s the one who brought sickness leads us to believe that He’s mad at us and is punishing us, and there will be no breakthrough in our lives. “Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you” (Matthew 9:29). The blind men who came to Jesus received healing because they fully expected it; the opposite is also true when it comes to whether or not we receive from Him.

Our Transformation Begins Inside Us

Knowing God through a relationship with Him gives us knowledge, but not just head knowledge; it’s relational and experiential. Coming to Christ makes us entirely new on the inside. We’re spirit beings living in physical bodies; getting born again puts a new creation in us. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our past identities, sins, and spiritual condition are removed, and we’re given a new identity as sons and daughters of God.

Walking through life with God radically changes our lives. The change begins in the way we think, and causes us to have a change of mind; this is called repentance. Believing Him when He tells us we’re righteous, holy, redeemed, and dearly loved naturally leads to changed actions. The person rooted in Christ doesn’t strive for acceptance, but instead acts out of the knowledge that they’re already accepted.

We Need to Know Who We Are

Real repentance is when we have the right belief about who we are. When we’ve changed our minds, we wholeheartedly believe that we’re the righteousness of God. This isn’t manufacturing an identity or trying to convince ourselves of something, but agreeing with what He has already said. This is powerful.

Taking action is perfectly fine, but our actions must spring from our faith in Christ. The key is to focus on Jesus and our relationship with Him. There’s a difference between works of the law and works of faith; the former are efforts to earn something from God, while the latter are natural results of our relationship with Him. Transformation comes from focusing on Jesus. “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Genuine faith will always express itself in action. Believing in Jesus should move us to serve, love, and give. We don’t have to strive to earn His favor, because we already have it. Even demons believe in God intellectually, but they don’t respond with obedience; a living faith will always bear fruit.

God is Asking Us to Trust Him

Abraham was a powerful example of someone who lived by faith rooted in relationship. He wasn’t justified by what he did, but by what he believed. “And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15:6, NKJV). His right-standing with God wasn’t earned, but received through trust.

This trust led Abraham to extraordinary obedience, such as when he prepared to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. It was a difficult command, but Abraham moved forward because he believed God would be faithful to His promise. His actions were not driven by fear or rule-following, but by relational trust.

The heart of Christianity isn’t about performance, principles, or religious rule-keeping. Everything we need flows from intimately knowing our heavenly Father. In the end, it isn’t about what we do, but who we know. It’s impossible to remain the same when we stay in His presence.