God, as We Know Him and Shall Know Him

By E.W Ettoh

This book is here to awaken, direct and redirect the innate desire in every human being to know the true God. Many people, including believing Christians do not know God as He is, but lower Him to the level of one who exists to meet their needs. Others perceive God as existing to punish bad people and reward the good. Still, others disregard God entirely and prohibit Him from being part of their day to day life. But how is God really like in nature, character and dealing with us? How does God want us to know Him? What is left to know about God? Is God relevant in our modern livelihood?

In this book, the author traces out the quality and quantity of Gods self-revelation to humanity through His Word, Nature and His dealings with us all. The author has summarised and contextualised many in-depth revelations. It is the authors hope that by reading this book, you will be empowered and drawn closer to your heavenly Father who loves you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504995320

E.W Ettoh

E.W. Ettoh serves as an Associate Pastor at Living Tower Ministries International, London. His passion in ministry is to see lives transformed by the power of God just as his own life was transformed. He is married to Rebecca and are blessed with a beautiful daughter.

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© 2015 Emmanuel Ettoh. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/11/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9530-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9531-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9532-0 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Preface

Introduction

1. Do You Know God?

Revelation, Not Proving

Imagine a World Where There is No God

Linking God from the Past, Present and Future

Why is there so much confusion about God?

To what extent can we know God?

2. Which God?

The Unknown God

Hinduism and the true God

Buddhism and the true God

Islam and the true God

Contradictions of Islam

Judaism and the true God

The Only true God

3. The Knowledge of God

A) Knowing God through Creation

B) Knowing God after Creation

C) Knowing God through His Name and Character

4. How We Know God Today

The figurative Language

(a) The Saviour, The Christ and The Lord

(b) The Way, The Truth and The Life

(c) Destroyer of the works of Satan

(d) The Intercessor

(e) The Church

5. How We Will Know God in the Future

Why We Cannot See God With Our Natural Eye Today

Clues from Scriptures that we will see God.

How We Will Know God

6. Fellowship with God

Fellowship is the Ultimate Goal

Claiming to have Fellowship with God

Developing and Sustaining Fellowship with God

Walking as Jesus Walked

7. Knowing Christ Jesus (By Name, Title and The Excellent Way)

Revelation by Name

Revelation by Titles

Christ the Lord

The Excellence of Knowing Christ

8. The Lord of Your Life

Jesus is Lord Over All

How do we make Jesus Christ our Lord?

Lessons from the Life of Apostle Paul

The Challenge of Serving your Lord

Notes

About the Author

Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge the tremendous input of Mr Sackey Bennin for the wonderful proofreading work done on the original manuscript. God Bless you.

Preface

What rings in your ears and heart when you hear someone mention ‘God’? Do you know God? Is your knowledge of God deeply rooted in your heart and soul and naturally flowing from within? Can you confidently convince yourself that you know God? Are you beyond any form of doubt and argument through personal experience and conviction about God? Most Christians would say ‘yes’ to these questions. But if you do know God, then would you be able to explain the who, where, when, why, what and how about Him? Why do we experience so many bad things around us if God is a good God? What is God’s big idea in creating you and me? My previous book ‘Your Right to Know God’ answers many of these questions and I encourage you to get hold of a copy of the book. This sequel is here to cast more light on the series about God; to direct, redirect and trigger the inborn desire in every human being to know the true God. This book will help you to know the true God more deeply; understand the true God as He has revealed Himself to humanity over the ages; secure your boldness, and also encourage you to make God the Lord over all your endeavours.

Many people, including believing Christians, do not know God as the Almighty, but lower Him to the level of one who exists to meet their needs. Recently, the outcome of a LifeWay research on 1000 Americans suggested that most people go to Church only if they have a need, for example, in their finances, relationship or health. It appears that most people have reduced God to a ‘need genius’ and this notion of God has resulted in generating ‘weak’ Christians. Yes, God can and does meet our day-to-day needs but He does not exist for our comfort and satisfaction alone. God exists for a bigger reason. God created us for fellowship; to know Him, to enjoy Him and for the manifestation of His glory through us. We must understand and know God as He wants us to know Him but not as we want to know Him – and also accord Him the worship due Him. God has revealed Himself to us through His name, attributes, what He does and what He can do.

In this book, it is my determination to trace out the quality and quantity of God’s self-revelation to all humanity mainly in the Bible, but also through nature and His dealings with us all. As passionate as I am in doing this, I am limited by space and time, and the Holy Bible remains the undisputable source of knowing God. However, I have summarised and contextualised many in-depth revelations that we can garner from the Holy Scriptures. It is my hope that by reading this book, many will be enabled to appreciate and grasp the awesome insights about God as revealed in the Bible – and be empowered. Stay tuned and may ‘The Mighty One’ bless and manifest Himself to you. Amen.

E.W Ettoh (Author)

Introduction

When you hear the word ‘God’, the following are the three basic thoughts that should come into your mind: The Majestic One, The Highest Good, and Our Father.

1. The Majestic One

The word ‘majesty’ (or the Latin maiestas) designates greatness. For example, when we speak of ‘Her Majesty’ the Queen (of the United Kingdom), we are ascribing greatness to her royal personage and position. Also, when we say ‘Alexander the Great’, we are extolling Alexander’s majesty in power and authority. We may apply the word ‘majesty’ to a person to exude greatness but God is the absolute ‘Majestic One’. God is supremely majestic and sovereign in power, authority, wisdom, goodness, truth and love. The Bible reads,

Great is the LORD, and most worthy of praise (Psalm 48:1). For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care (Psalm 95:3-7).

God is the greatest and most worthy of our praise. He upholds the earth, the sea and all which dwell in them. The majesty of God calls us into reverent worship; worship with our soul, spirit and body. It calls us into an acceptable worship of the One and Only true God revealed in the Bible.

2. The Highest Good

God is essentially, eternally and unchangeably good; no more, no less. God is the highest form of ‘good’. It is written in the Bible, ‘You [God] are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees’ (Psalm 119:68). ‘The LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! (Isaiah 30:18). ‘For He [God] is good. His love endures forever’ (Psalm 136:1).

The original Saxon meaning of our English word ‘God’ is ‘The Good’; summum bonum; the chiefest good¹. When the Bible uses the word ‘good’ in reference to God, it is used to denote something inherent in Him that is to be desired or humanly approved of. It describes something of a high standard that is morally excellent, and that makes us call Him ‘gracious’, ‘merciful’ and ‘loving’. God’s truthfulness, trustworthiness, justice, thoughts about us, kindness, patience and love are things that make up His character of goodness.

The Bible reads, ‘O taste and see that the LORD is good’ (Psalm 34:8). ‘The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him, but with an overwhelming flood he will make an end to Nineveh; he will pursue his foes into darkness’ (Nahum 1:7-8).

3. Our Father

God is the author of all creation including all human beings. Our society, lifestyles and choices might have influenced how and what we currently are but God initiated all that there is and all that we are; He is our Father.

The number one characteristic of a father is his ability to produce after his own kind – physically, spiritually, morally and socially. And so God created us in His image:

Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground (Genesis 1:26-28).

An image is a likeness but not necessarily the actual thing. One can identify the actual object and decipher its characteristics and nature by looking at the image. God has created us in His image spiritually, morally and socially. We are His and His alone. It is written, ‘Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure’ (1 John 3:2-3). The love, commitment and patience of a real father are extraordinary – and at the end, it is the outcome of the children’s look, lifestyle and destiny that attest to one’s fatherhood. We will know what we really are when we see our heavenly father face to face. God is our father in every way to bring us to a successful today, tomorrow and future (Jeremiah 29:11).

Every human being existed in God before we became physically, spiritually and morally existent. God birthed us in His great mind long before Adam and Eve were created and long before we became living beings through the fusion of egg and sperm from our biological parents. God told Prophet Jeremiah, ‘before I formed you in your mother’s womb, I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations’ (Jeremiah 1:5). God deposited His spirit (breath of life) in us and we became living souls (Genesis 2:7). We belong to God; He is our original parent.

God is first and foremost, above and beyond anything else, a Father² to you and me who believe in Him. A father protects, provides and guides. Jesus told us a wealth of things about God being our Father. From the Lords’ prayer (Matthew 6: 9-13) to His outcry on the cross (Matthew 27:46), Jesus Christ revealed God as Father to us. God’s fatherhood is what He really wants us to know about Him. God is our Father. The Bible reads,

‘One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:6).

God is a Father to every living being for ‘He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous’ (Matthew 5:45); God loves all His creation. God is every believing person’s Father for He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:5) and has put within us the Spirit that cries out ‘Abba Father’ (Romans 8:15). ‘See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are’ (1 John 3:1).

Jesus Christ said, do not call anyone father;

And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven (Matthew 23:9).

If you think deeply about it, you would realise that no one human being could truly be all that a father is supposed to be: the love, commitment, patience, care, guidance and leadership. All men fall short of this role and only God truly exemplifies what a father is.

In this lifetime, we can all know our heavenly Father to the extent necessary for our happiness, salvation and worship. In heaven, we shall see Him face to face. In our present state, we only know God to the extent that He wants us to know Him. Praise God!

Chapter One

Do You Know God?

Do you know God? Undoubtedly, this is a mind-boggling question which many of us may even declare as absurd. Nonetheless, this was the exact question that a preacher asked at a Christian conference that I attended in August 2001. I was dumbfounded and surprised at such a question. In fact, I was embarrassed that nine years after my water baptism in 2001, I couldn’t confidently answer this question for myself. Today, I understand that the preacher was drawing attention to our conviction and experience (or testimony) of the sovereignty of God, our personal relationship (or fellowship) with Him, and our ‘brokenness’ in the process of making God the Lord of our lives.

Do you know God personally as you ought to know Him? Can you confidently convince yourself that you know God? The natural reaction of most Christians to such a question would be ‘yes, I do know God’. But if you do know God, then would you be able to explain the who, where, when, why, what and how about Him? A simple test to measure how well you know God is to examine what your response would be if you had to choose between God and money; God and the people you feel closest to; God and your will; and between God and your personal ambitions. These are choices we make every day but these choices are indicators of the extent of our knowledge of the Mighty One. If we really know God, we would submit to His will and make Him a priority in all we do. The Bible reads, ‘Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ … But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well’ (Matthew 6:31-33). Self-dependence, disobedience and blasphemy are some of the characteristics of those who do not know God.

Everyone can know God in a personal way. Every human being is entitled to this marvellous knowledge. However, many people including some born-again Christians are unable to grasp the truth that they can know God or can relate to Him on a personal level. God has said that, ‘No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,’ declares the LORD. ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more’ (Jeremiah 31:34). In this lifetime, it is possible for us to know God to the extent necessary to love Him, worship Him and serve Him, as well as to enjoy absolute happiness and contentment. We can all know God. God has revealed Himself to us in His Written Word (the Bible), Preached Word (Sermons or Rhema) and Incarnate Word (Jesus Christ).

Does knowing God involve any special requirement apart from seeking Him? Does one have to be ‘super-spiritual’ or be a ‘super-saint’, whatever that means, in order to know God? I do not think that we need anything out of the reach of the ordinary man to know God. The Word of God said ‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart’ (Jeremiah 29:13). Seeking with the entirety of our hearts is all that we need to know God.

On the fateful day that the preacher asked the mind-boggling question ‘Do you know God?’, the preacher began to tell about how awesome God is and then started to ask individual pastors, leaders and everyone else present: ‘Do you know God?’ Luckily, he did not get to the place where I was seated so I escaped being asked the question directly. What transpired that evening has been a mystery