To know Him is to . . .

God’s glory gives you a hope that is steadfast and sure; you have a future connected with that glory. Colossians 3: [4] When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

The idea of glory is the outshining, the manifestation, the demonstration of His excellence, explains Richard Jordan.

God’s glory is not just that He wants you to brag about Him. It’s that He wants you to see why He’s WORTHY of being honored. He wants you to see the facets of His character that make Him someone to stand in awe of. He wants you to understand how He thinks, how He responds, how He lives. The reason for that is in John 17.

This is the Lord Jesus Christ the night before He dies: [1] These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
[2] As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

Now, here’s a good verse—you need to remember this one. You want to know what eternal life is? The gift of God is everlasting life to every one who believes. You want to know what you got when you got saved? This verse tells you:

[3] And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

That word know in the Bible doesn’t just mean, “Hey, I know that person; what’s their name?” It's used back in Genesis 4 when Adam knew his wife. They had a personal, intimate relationship where they knew one another. That’s that word.

To know God is to have the ability to personally know Him in a personal, intimate communion and way where He becomes your friend; lover, if you want to put it that way.

Eternal life is to know Him in an intimate, personal way so that you have a connection with the Father through the Son. It’s not just living forever; you’re going to live forever anyway. Heaven, hell, lake of fire, you’re going to live forever.

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In John 1, when it says “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” Jesus Christ has come as the one who will accomplish the ultimate intention of God in His creation and He's going to come as Emmanuel, God with us, dwelling among men as man, for the purpose of accomplishing the purpose, the plan of the Father.

That's why it says what it does in verse 14: [14] And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

When you listen to that verse it sounds different than when you read it and I'm conscious of that every time I quote that verse.

There's really two issues about the dwelling. One, He dwelt among us full of grace and truth. That's an issue about the moral glory; the essence of the character of who He was.

But there's another issue about His glory. “We beheld His glory.” There was a manifestation of His glory, and it was the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.

Glory is the outworking of the plan and the purpose the Father had, that He would dwell and come and share His life.

To know Him is to enter into an understanding of who He is and what He's planning on doing; His purposes, goals.

God-likeness is to be able to enter into an understanding of what God's doing so that you can begin to labor with Him, work with Him in it. But it gets to the place where you begin to not just know what He's doing and labor with Him, but you begin to be excited about what He's doing.

You come to delight, you come to rejoice. Jesus said, “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.”

That's not a bad thing; it's a good thing. I'm consumed with what excites God and His plan. The old A-Team TV show used to say, “I love it when a plan comes together.”