How is it that we know that God IS? We can’t see Him! Well, we return to Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” We haven’t seen God, but we have faith that HE IS! And, “without faith, it is impossible to please Him…” [Hebrews 11:6].

God is not human, He is spiritual. He is in a spiritual realm which, we are told, does not consist of flesh and bones, Luke 24, verse 39. [(Jesus, before ascending back to the Father, said,) “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”]

No one knows what a spiritual being looks like. You may remember a couple months ago, when we were studying in Exodus, chapter 33, we talked about Moses desiring to see God. He said, “I know You by Name, but I wish to see Your glory—I desire to see Your glory,” Exodus 33:17 and 18. [“So the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.’ And he said, ‘Please, show me Your glory.’”] But God said that that was an impossibility. He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live,” Exodus 33, verse 20. And, you remember that God put Moses in the cleft of the rock. He covered the cleft with His hand and He passed before Moses, then removed His hand and Moses was able to see the back of God, Exodus 33:23. [“Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.”] At the time of our study, we discussed that text at some length, wondering what Moses saw. Well, it is impossible; no man has seen God. We refer back to John 1, verse 18, that we read a moment ago, which states that no man has seen God. [“No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”] So God is spirit. We know that He exists, not because we can visually see Him as we see one another, but because we have faith.

Another thing we can know about God is that He is a personal God. He is spirit, yet He possesses what we would refer to as personal attributes. For example, He has knowledge and intelligence. We see many examples of this and could turn to literally hundreds of passages of Scripture, but I’ll mention Genesis 18, verse 19, and Exodus 3, verse 7, as two Scriptures that specifically speak about God’s knowledge—what He knew of a particular event or events. [Genesis 18:19: “For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.” Exodus 3:7: “And the Lord said: ‘I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.’”] So, God has knowledge, or intelligence.

God also has a Will. Exodus 3, verse 14-17 speaks about His Will. I preached last Sunday morning about the three facets of the Will of God: His proclaimed Will, His providential Will, and His permissive Will. God has a Will. [Exodus 3:14-17:“And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you.” Moreover God said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: “The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My Name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.” Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say to them, “The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared to me, saying, ‘I have surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt; and I have said I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.’”’”]

God also has feelings. This is another personal attribute that He has. For example, He has anger, Deuteronomy 1, verse 37 [“The Lord was also angry with me for your sakes, saying, ‘Even you shall not go in there.’”]. Moses speaks about the anger that God felt toward the children of Israel. God also has the feeling of jealousy. Notice the very first commandment of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” [Exodus 20:3, King James Version]. And in Exodus, chapter 20, verse 5, He says, “I am a jealous God.” [“you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me…”] He is also a God of compassion, Psalm 111, verse 4. [“He has made His wonderful works to be remembered; The Lord is gracious and full of compassion.”]

So, God is spirit, yet He has what we would see as personal attributes—that of knowledge or intelligence, a Will, and feelings.

Because God is a personal Being, we can have a personal relationship with Him. In John 17, verse 3, Jesus made the statement, “This is eternal life, that they (meaning “us”) may know You (“God”).” So we can know Him, AND we can have a personal relationship with Him.

That term [“personal relationship”] used to bother me sometimes, maybe not so much any more, but for a while it seemed like it was being overused and misused so often—speaking about a personal relationship with God. I think that some people used the term “personal relationship” as meaning “I can be a buddy with God,” or, “We’re equals,” or, “We’re on a first-name basis.” That’s not the meaning of this Scripture. We must remember who we are, and we must remember Who God is. We can, nevertheless, have a personal relationship with Him, as opposed to an impersonal relationship and as opposed to trying to have a relationship with God through someone else. No, our relationship with God, if it is to be, must be one that is between Him and Me—one-on-one.