Knowing God Through His Word Is the Most Extraordinary Experience

Imagine this: the Creator of the universe, the One who spun galaxies into being, the One whose voice shakes mountains. He invites you to know Him. Not just to know about Him, but to know Him, deeply, personally, transformatively. That is, without question, the most extraordinary experience this world has to offer. And the marvel of it is that this life-altering encounter comes through the most ordinary means: reading and hearing the Word of God.

The Word That Reveals God

In 1 Samuel 3:21, we read, “And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.” This verse quietly carries one of the most profound truths in all of Scripture: God reveals Himself through His Word. Samuel didn’t stumble upon a vague divine presence. He encountered the living God through hearing His word.

This sets a divine precedent: God has chosen to make Himself known not through mystic rituals or grand adventures, but through the clarity and power of His spoken and written Word. Even Samuel, before this moment, “did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him” (1 Samuel 3:7). When God opened his ears to hear and recognize His voice, that was the turning point. He went from familiarity with religion to personal knowledge of the living God.

Beholding Glory in the Gospel

The apostle Paul ties this same reality into our lives today. In 2 Corinthians 3:18, he writes, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” The transformation we long for becoming more Christlike happens not through self-effort or religious performance, but through beholding Christ.

But where do we behold Him?

Paul answers that question a few verses later in 2 Corinthians 4:4, explaining that unbelievers are blinded “from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” The glory we are to behold the glory that transforms is shining forth in the gospel. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, recorded and preserved in the Scriptures, God has unveiled His radiant character. It is through this gospel Word that we see Him, and in seeing, we are changed.

This is no passive glance. This is the kind of seeing that consumes, that reforms, that revives. And though we long for the day when we will see Christ face to face, Paul reminds us that even now, in our “mirror-dim” beholding, the transformation begins.

Knowing God Is Not Just Possible It’s Promised

God’s Word does not return void (Isaiah 55:11). When you open your Bible with prayerful expectation, you are not performing a duty you are stepping into a sacred encounter. You are positioning yourself to hear the voice that called light out of darkness and now shines into hearts with “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

And this beholding is not an optional spiritual experience reserved for mystics or theologians. It is for every believer. Colossians 3:10 tells us that we are being “renewed in knowledge after the image of [our] Creator.” The more we know Him truly know Him through His Word the more we reflect Him.

True Transformation

But this transformation is not merely moral or behavioral. It is ontological a change in our very being. We put on the “new self” not by striving harder but by knowing deeper. The Word introduces us to God, and in knowing Him, we become like Him. John writes in 1 John 3:6, “No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.” Why? Because true knowledge of God always changes the one who sees.

This aligns perfectly with what Jesus said in John 17:3: “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Eternal life is not just about duration; it’s about relationship. It’s about a life lived in communion with the one true God.

A Daily Invitation

So what do we do with this?

First, we approach Scripture with humility and dependence. Like the psalmist, we pray, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18). Reading the Bible is not an academic exercise. It is spiritual encounter. It is where we meet God.

Second, we persevere in the slow, sometimes frustrating process of transformation. As Paul reminds us, we are changed “from one degree of glory to another.” It’s incremental, not instant. But the promise is sure. Every glimpse of Christ’s glory, no matter how dim, is reshaping us.

Third, we remember that the most extraordinary experiences of our lives may come not in spectacular events, but in quiet mornings, eyes fixed on the Word, hearts lifted in prayer, beholding the glory of the Lord.

We need not travel to mountaintops or celestial realms. The God of the universe is as near as His Word and in His Word, we can know Him.

Share this article or subscribe to our newsletter with someone hungry for more of God or sign up for weekly encouragement in your faith.