And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. John 17:3

There are three levels of knowing: knowing about, knowing intimately, and knowing by doing. Most serious Christians are aware of the limitations of the first, and the need to proceed to the second – to not be stuck in our heads. A. W. Tozer often lamented that Christians had settled for “knowing about” God as a substitute for knowing Him — a tragedy of the head’s usurpation of the heart.

Knowing much about God while remaining unchanged by that knowledge is not wisdom — it is vanity dressed as learning. Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

This move from head to heart requires grace, and therefore faith; we must believe what we have heard and understood. Paul locates this movement in the heart — the seat of belief, desire, and trust — not merely in the mind.

For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10:10

Mature Christians live out of their hearts more than from their heads. But we must not stop there – stuck in our hearts with an incomplete faith. The third level — what the early fathers of the faith called illumination — is the moment when what we know moves from our mind, through our heart, and into our bones. It is an embodied response: faith made flesh in action. Watchman Nee, in The Normal Christian Life, described the Spirit’s work as making objective truth inwardly and experientially real — not merely understood. We find this “normal Christian life” prominently described in Scripture.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. James 1:22-25

You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. James 2:24

[Note: James is not arguing against faith, but against faith that produces nothing. Justified here means demonstrated as genuine, not earned.]

Illumination – even remembering who we are in Christ – requires an experiential embodied response to the will of God. Dallas Willard, in Renovation of the Heart, described spiritual transformation as the renovation of the whole person — not merely new beliefs, but new desires, new habits, and ultimately new action. Inward illumination shines forth for others to see.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

Furthermore, the Parable of the Sheep and Goats (Matthew 25:31-46) illustrates the necessity of humble and sacrificial service “to the least of these My brethren” as a prerequisite for eternal life (v. 46) – not as the means of earning eternal life, but as its natural and necessary evidence. Illumination – as the deepest level of knowing – manifests in loving one another, loving our neighbors, and loving our enemies as Jesus loved us – love in the flesh.

When did you last feel like your relationship with God had genuinely moved — that you were different, not just more informed? What does it cost you, concretely, to move from knowing about love to actually loving a neighbor or an enemy — and what has stopped you from paying that cost?

The Keys to Deeper Knowing

• Desire more than understanding; desire more than faith not yet perfected. Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commityour way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass (Psalm 37:4-5).
• Learn to hear the LORD’s voice with our hearts – the spiritual organ of faith and desire (Romans 10:17). Bernard of Clairvaux writes extensively on the heart as the faculty of love and desire in On Loving God.
• Press through to the perfection of our faith (James 2:22).
• Count and accept the cost of our transformation into the sanctified instruments of God’s good work (Luke 14:25-33).
• Assemble and go in community, loving and exhorting one another (Hebrews 10:24-25).
• Be aware of the threefold enemy Scripture consistently identifies – the excuse-making of our carnal mind, the world’s distractions, and Satan’s deceptive redirections – and put on the whole armor of God to stand against them (Ephesians 6:10-20).
• Refuse to settle for what we have judged to be good enough. When Scripture says “all things work together for good to those who love God” or “be filled with all the fullness of God,” these are not poetic overstatements. They are descriptions of what God actually intends — and what He is actually capable of producing in you (Romans 8:28; Ephesians 3:19).

These are not abstract ideals. They are the conditions of the journey — and the journey has a starting place.

How Do We Begin?

1. Lead with our hearts and not with our heads. The world has indoctrinated us into the Age of Reason, suggesting the human mind can solve every problem. Regrettably, many in the church have been taught to distrust their hearts. In both cases, the opposite is true. Though Scripture warns that the unregenerate heart is deceitful, the regenerate heart — the new heart of Ezekiel 36:26 — is precisely where God meets us. The carnal, reasoning mind is the organ in need of the Spirit’s renewal, and our suspicion (Romans 12:2).
2. Recognize we are likely stuck: either stuck in our heads or stuck in a faith not yet perfected. Invite the LORD to inspect our hearts (Psalm 139:23-24). Do we trust Him with all our heart, or do we lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6)? Is our faith manifesting God-glorifying good work?
3. Ask God to stir the desire in our hearts to know Him beyond our comforts and conveniences. Our comforts are not neutral. They train us toward shallowness, teaching us to mistake spiritual ease for spiritual health.
4. Don’t assume anything. It never hurts to challenge one’s self: Do we believe all we understand to be true? Do we walk in all we believe? As the man desperate for his child’s deliverance said, “I believe, help my unbelief.” In other words, ask for the gift that is faith; ask also for its perfection.
5. Count the cost. God does not require this for our discouragement, but to help us find the truth. More often than not, we will find the cost less than we expected; and every time, the return far greater.
6. Consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching (Hebrews 10:24-25). Absolutely no one should do this alone; find your platoon.
7. Face doubts and fears with belief and truth (intentionally and diligently). Behind every persistent fear is a lie that has not yet been confronted. The Holy Spirit was given precisely for this: to lead us into all truth (John 16:13).
8. Actively love one another, our neighbors, and our enemies. Love is not what we produce after we have been transformed. It is the means of transformation itself. Love is the primary fruit of the Spirit for a reason; God is love; consequently, we are to lead with love, look for love, and let love reign in every encounter and the good work in which we walk.
9. Participate in each other’s good work. Two things to put together here:
   • Good work for men to see and glorify God is done outside in the world where men can see it.
   • Where two or three are gathered in that work, Jesus is there in their midst (Matthew 18:20).

The Importance of Going Together

Deeper knowing occurs when the people of God do good work together. Surrender to the desire for deeper knowing is more than the starting place; it is a heart tie with God, who desires to know all of His children in a deeper place. But even here, the giving and receiving of that desire is conditional. Desires of this magnitude, for mature Christians, come with conditions. Not conditional in the sense that God’s love must be earned, but conditional in the sense that intimacy, by its nature, requires mutual movement. This will be hard for some to accept, but to whom much is given, much is expected (Luke 12:48).

God desires our acknowledgement of Him, our belief in Him, our intimacy with Him, and our illumination through His good work. And beyond these, God has purposes that exceed our individual transformation: His reign over us, and His habitation in us. What we are suggesting here is God’s intention to bring this age to a close, so we can get on with the next. This is not primarily an eschatological argument, though the implications are that significant. It is a formation argument: the wife of the Lamb is made ready in her becoming – through the sanctifying work of love enacted together(Revelation 19:6-8).

Why is this important? Because our maturity at this late hour cannot be accomplished apart from our going more together. Eugene Peterson, in A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, understood that formation is not a solo project — it is learned and sustained in the company of those committed to the same direction.

Furthermore, our attaining to a deeper level of knowing is not more important to God than His Son receiving His wife. The implicit argument is: (1) the Wife’s readiness is God’s priority; (2) the Wife’s readiness requires communal maturity; and, (3) therefore communal formation is God’s number one priority. Consequently, it must by ours. What about saving the lost? Jesus’ own prescription for evangelism was the unity of His people: “that the world may know” (John 17:23). And loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength? That is precisely the journey this article describes.

What would it mean if the unity of your community were not a byproduct of your individual spiritual health, but the very means by which your faith is completed?

Deeper Knowing Through the Unity of All Believers

The concert orchestra desiring to play Handel’s Messiah pursues the deeper knowing of the piece together. To think they could perform such a rich and dynamic composition apart from living together with it would be ridiculous. The Bible gives us a more explicit and sobering metaphor.

…there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. 1Corinthians 12:25-26

…from whom [Christ] the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Ephesians 4:16

The human body does not perform poorly with its parts separated; in most cases, it dies. With that in mind, what might we do to find the deeper level of knowing God by effectively working together?

The following assumes a community of faith determined to pursue deeper knowing together, who meet weekly for this purpose. The following timeline is a guide, not a prescription. Adjust it to your community’s history and readiness — but don’t use flexibility as an escape from commitment. As with all things spiritual and eternal, walking in step with the Holy Spirit is essential.

1. Determine: Do we technically understand and accept biblical facts about the unity of all believers; or are we stuck here? (Four weeks)
2. Determine: Do we believe what we have heard? Are we stuck here? (Two weeks)
3. Fast and pray corporately for God’s desire to be one with the Body of Christ. (One week to forty days; depending on the Spirit’s leading and your community’s readiness)
4. Count the cost – together. (Two weeks)
5. Face our fears and doubts – together. (Two weeks)
6. Rejoice in the intimacy – together. (One week directly, and continuously afterward)
7. Go together in the good works of unity – with other fellowships, if possible. (Several months)
8. Recognize and celebrate God’s reign, intimacy, habitation, and glory in the work. (At intervals during #7)
9. Repeat from step #1, adding those God has drawn to the unity and depth of knowing you have discovered (i.e., grow your platoon).

Apply this process to each of God’s eternal purposes – His reign over us, His intimacy with us, His habitation in us (this one), and His glory through us – and you will find yourself living in what Paul described as exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us (Ephesians 3:20).

The deeper level of knowing is not reserved for the mystic or the monk. It is the normal Christian life – waiting for your surrender to it within your fellowship and your spheres of influence outside it. May He bless you with whatever you lack — curiosity, desire, courage, willingness — in your pursuit of deeper knowing, that the Lamb might soon have His wife.

Have a strong day in the Lord,

Rob

#iamjustthepen

P.S. On a personal note: What I truly desire is a platoon of men and women willing to pursue something real and purposeful and impactful. I need such a platoon to encourage and exhort me into an embodied and perfected faith. I truly believe the Bridegroom is waiting, along with all creation.

Bernard of Clairvaux. (1995). On Loving God (R. Walton, Trans.). Cistercian Publications.

Nee, W. (1961). The Normal Christian Life. Hendrickson Publishers.

Peterson, E. H. (2000). A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society. InterVarsity Press.

Thomas à Kempis. (1999). The imitation of Christ (W. Benham, Trans.). Project Gutenberg. (Original work published ca. 1418–1427).

Tozer, A. W. (2006). The Pursuit of God. Moody Publishers.

Willard, D. (2002). Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. NavPress.