There is a difference between knowing a great deal about someone and actually knowing them.
We understand this instinctively in our human relationships. We can know where someone grew up, what they do for a living, the things they enjoy, and even details about significant moments in their life without ever having shared the kind of relationship that allows us to truly know their character. Knowing facts about someone can certainly help us understand them, but information alone does not create intimacy.
The same distinction can quietly appear in our relationship with God.
We can spend years reading the Bible, listening to sermons, completing Bible studies, reading Christian books, and learning more about theology while still discovering that there are places in our lives where trusting God feels surprisingly difficult. We may know many Scriptures about His faithfulness yet struggle to believe He will be faithful in the situation directly in front of us, or understand intellectually that He loves us while continuing to approach Him as though His affection must somehow be earned.
Scripture itself shows us that knowing God is meant to go deeper than simply possessing information about Him. Paul, who already knew the Scriptures and had encountered Christ, could still say:
“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings.” — Philippians 3:10
Paul was not speaking as someone who knew nothing about God. He was expressing the desire of someone who understood that there is always greater depth available in our relationship with Him.
None of this means biblical knowledge is unimportant. In fact, we cannot genuinely know God while remaining uninterested in what He has revealed about Himself. Scripture is foundational because it is through His Word that we learn His character, His ways, His promises, His commands, and ultimately the story of His redemption through Jesus Christ.
The question is whether the truth we are learning is remaining primarily in our minds or gradually becoming something we are experiencing, trusting, obeying, and living.
Knowing God more deeply is not about moving beyond Scripture. It is about allowing what Scripture reveals about Him to draw us into a deeper relationship with the God who has spoken.
Biblical Knowledge Is Meant to Lead Us Towards Relationship
There is tremendous value in studying the Bible carefully.
Psalm 119 repeatedly celebrates the importance of knowing God’s Word, while Paul tells Timothy that Scripture is “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). Jesus Himself consistently referred people back to what had been written.
Learning matters.
The more we understand Scripture, the better equipped we become to recognise truth, understand God’s character, discern His ways, and avoid building our faith around assumptions that simply sound spiritual.
Yet Jesus also gave a sobering warning to people who knew the Scriptures extensively but failed to recognise the One to whom those Scriptures pointed.
“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” — John 5:39
The problem was not that they studied Scripture. The problem was that their study had not led them towards Christ.
That distinction still matters for us.
We can finish another Bible study, underline another passage, listen to another sermon, and immediately move towards the next piece of Christian content without allowing ourselves enough time to consider what the truth we have just encountered means for our actual relationship with God.
If I read that God is my provider, there comes a point when that truth must meet the part of me that is worried about provision. If I study His sovereignty, eventually that knowledge has to meet a circumstance I cannot control. If I believe Hebrews 4:16 when it tells me to “come boldly unto the throne of grace,” that truth should eventually influence whether I actually feel able to approach God honestly when I have failed.
This is where knowledge begins shaping relationship.
We stop simply asking, What does this passage teach me? and begin asking, What does this show me about God, and how should knowing this change the way I walk with Him?
Slow Down Long Enough to Notice What Scripture Reveals About God
It is possible to read a considerable amount of Scripture without spending very much time thinking about the God being revealed through it.
Reading plans can be extremely helpful, particularly when they encourage us to engage with parts of the Bible we might otherwise overlook. Yet there are times when our desire to complete the day’s reading can unintentionally cause us to move through Scripture more quickly than our hearts can absorb it.
Psalm 1 gives us a different picture of engagement with God’s Word. The person who delights in the law of the Lord “meditates day and night” on it and becomes “like a tree planted by the rivers of water” (Psalm 1:2–3).
The image is not one of hurried consumption. It is one of becoming rooted.
One simple way to deepen our relationship with God is therefore to slow down enough to notice Him in what we are reading.
When Moses asked God to show him His glory in Exodus 33, God’s response in the following chapter was to proclaim His character:
“The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.” — Exodus 34:6
Throughout Scripture, God continually reveals who He is.
So as you read, ask what the passage reveals about His character. What seems to matter to Him? How does He respond to people who are frightened, disobedient, grieving, confused, or faithful? What does this story show you about His patience, holiness, justice, compassion, mercy, or faithfulness?
David wrote:
“O taste and see that the Lord is good.” — Psalm 34:8
There is an invitation here that goes beyond merely knowing the statement God is good. David invites us to discover that goodness personally.
As we begin reading Scripture with this kind of attention, the Bible becomes more than a collection of principles for living well. We begin recognising the character of the One we are learning to trust.
Let Prayer Become Conversation, Not Only Requests
For many of us, prayer initially develops around need.
Something happens and we ask God for help. Someone we love is struggling and we pray for them. We need direction, provision, healing, or wisdom, so we bring those requests before Him.
Scripture encourages us to do exactly that. Philippians 4:6 tells us to bring our requests to God, and Hebrews 4:16 invites us to approach Him confidently when we need mercy and grace.
Yet Scripture also shows us that prayer is much richer than presenting requests.
Jesus taught His disciples to begin prayer with:
“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” — Matthew 6:9
Before the requests come relationship, reverence, and recognition of who God is.
The Psalms give us another beautiful picture of this kind of prayer. David brings God gratitude, disappointment, fear, confession, praise, confusion, longing, and joy. There seems to be very little of his inner life that he considers inappropriate to bring before God.
Knowing God more deeply involves learning to do the same.
We can thank Him for ordinary moments of goodness, talk honestly about what is happening within us, confess where we have struggled, ask Him questions, sit quietly before Him, and allow Scripture to shape what we pray.
This kind of prayer does not need to sound impressive.
Jesus specifically warned against believing that we will be heard because of the quantity of our words (Matthew 6:7–8). Our Father already knows what we need.
The goal is not to become better at sounding prayerful. It is to become increasingly honest with the God who already knows us completely.
Knowing God Deeply Requires Trusting Him in Real Life
There are things about God we understand differently after we have needed them.
Job knew of God before his suffering, yet after everything he had walked through he said:
“I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.” — Job 42:5
There had been a movement from hearing towards a deeper encounter.
We can know that God is faithful because Scripture tells us He is, but walking through a season where we have no choice but to depend on that faithfulness gives the truth a different weight. We can believe that His grace is sufficient because we have read 2 Corinthians 12:9 yet discovering His strength in a season when ours has run out allows those words to become deeply personal.
David’s declaration in Psalm 23 is another example. He does not merely describe God theoretically as a shepherd. He says:
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” — Psalm 23:1
His knowledge of God’s character had become personal.
This does not mean we should seek difficult circumstances in order to know God better. Life provides enough opportunities of its own. What matters is what we do when those moments arrive.
We can allow uncertainty to become a place where we learn dependence, waiting to become a place where we discover patience, and disappointment to become a place where we wrestle honestly with what it means to trust God’s character when His ways do not make sense to us.
These experiences do not replace Scripture. They often send us back to it with different eyes.
Verses we once understood intellectually begin carrying the weight of something we have lived, and truths that previously felt familiar become deeply personal because we have discovered God’s faithfulness for ourselves.
Make Room to Listen, Not Only Consume
We live in a time when Christian content is available almost constantly.
There are sermons, podcasts, devotionals, Bible studies, books, videos, newsletters, and social media accounts offering encouragement and teaching throughout the day. Many of these resources are genuinely valuable, and Scripture itself affirms the importance of teachers who equip believers and help us mature in faith (Ephesians 4:11–13).
Yet there is a point where consuming more Christian content does not necessarily mean we are creating more space for God.
We can move from one message to another without ever sitting quietly with what we have already received. Our minds become full of other people’s reflections about God while we leave very little room to meditate on His Word ourselves.
Mary gives us a simple picture of another way.
While Martha was occupied with everything that needed to be done, Luke tells us:
“Mary… sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word.” — Luke 10:39
Jesus did not condemn service or responsibility, but He affirmed Mary’s decision to give Him her attention.
Psalm 46:10 similarly says:
“Be still, and know that I am God.”
There are times when knowing God more deeply may require us to resist immediately reaching for another resource.
Close the book for a moment. Pause the podcast. Put the phone aside. Sit with the Scripture you have just read and allow yourself to remain there.
Ask God what needs your attention. Write what you are noticing in a journal. Pray through the passage rather than moving immediately towards something new.
Depth often requires enough quiet for truth to take root.
Obedience Deepens What We Know
There comes a point when knowing God requires us to respond to what He has already shown us.
Jesus made this connection very clearly:
“If ye love me, keep my commandments.” — John 14:15
James expresses the same principle when he tells believers:
“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.” — James 1:22
We can study forgiveness extensively, but there is a different kind of formation that happens when we actually choose to forgive someone who has hurt us. We can learn about generosity while remaining reluctant to release what we have or read about trusting God while continually refusing to surrender the areas where we most want control.
Obedience is not how we earn a relationship with God. Grace remains the foundation of our salvation and our relationship with Him. Yet genuine relationship eventually affects how we live.
Jesus said in John 14:21 that the person who has His commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Him, and He goes on to speak of revealing Himself to that person.
There is something important in that connection.
Each act of obedience becomes an opportunity to discover that God’s ways are trustworthy.
This does not mean we will obey perfectly. There will be moments when we hesitate, misunderstand, or choose poorly and need to return to God again. Even those moments can deepen our relationship when they teach us something about repentance, mercy, and the patience of a Father who continues forming us.
Knowing God more deeply is not simply learning more truth. It is allowing the truth we already know to become part of the way we live.
Do Not Mistake Emotional Intensity for Intimacy
There will be beautiful seasons when God’s presence feels particularly close.
Prayer flows easily, worship moves us deeply, Scripture seems to speak directly into our circumstances, and we leave our quiet time feeling spiritually refreshed. Those moments are gifts, and we can receive them with gratitude.
They are not, however, the only evidence of intimacy with God.
The Psalms repeatedly show us faithful people seeking God during seasons when His presence did not feel obvious. Psalm 42 records the psalmist asking:
“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me?” — Psalm 42:5
Yet his response is not to conclude that God has disappeared. He tells his own soul:
“Hope thou in God.”
Faith sometimes means continuing to trust what we know about God when our emotions are telling us something different.
There will be mornings when you read your Bible and nothing feels particularly remarkable, prayers that seem ordinary, and seasons when your emotions do not match what you know to be true. If we have learned to associate closeness with God primarily with how strongly we feel His presence, those quieter periods can make us wonder whether something has gone wrong.
A mature relationship with God learns to remain rooted even when feelings fluctuate.
Hebrews 11:6 tells us that the person who comes to God must believe that He is and that “he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Our seeking is therefore anchored in who God is, not merely in what we feel during the process.
We continue seeking Him because He is worthy of being known, trusting that the God who promised, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5), remains present even when our emotions are quiet.
Knowing God Changes the Way We Live
One of the clearest indications that our knowledge of God is moving beyond information is that it gradually begins changing us.
Jeremiah 9:23–24 gives us an important perspective:
“Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might… But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me.”
God places knowing Him above the things human beings naturally use to establish significance.
Yet that same passage immediately tells us something about the God we are invited to know: He exercises “lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth.”
Knowing Him therefore begins reshaping what we value.
The more deeply we know His mercy, the more willing we should become to extend mercy. The more we understand His patience with us, the more patience should begin appearing in our relationships. The more securely we know His love, the less desperately we need to seek our identity from the approval of other people.
Paul describes this transformation in 2 Corinthians 3:18, where he speaks about believers being “changed into the same image from glory to glory.”
Knowing God is transformative.
We do not simply collect information about His character. As we behold Him through His Word and walk with Him through everyday life, the Holy Spirit gradually forms that character within us.
A Gentle Invitation to Know the God You Are Reading About
If your spiritual life has become filled with learning but feels strangely lacking in connection, you may not need another book, another Bible study, or another complicated routine right now.
You may simply need to spend some unhurried time with what you already know.
God gives a beautiful invitation in Jeremiah 29:13:
“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”
Take one truth about God’s character and sit with it. Read a passage slowly enough to notice what it reveals about Him. Turn what you are learning into prayer and consider where that truth needs to become trust or obedience in your everyday life.
Perhaps you have been reading that God is faithful. Ask yourself where you currently need to trust His faithfulness.
Perhaps you have been studying His peace. Bring Him the situation that has been keeping your mind unsettled.
Perhaps you have been learning about His grace. Consider whether you are actually allowing yourself to receive that grace in an area where you continue living under condemnation.
You do not need to manufacture intimacy with God.
James 4:8 gives us the simple invitation:
“Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.”
Keep showing up.
Not because you need to prove your devotion, but because there is always more of His character for you to discover.
A Soft Next Step
If you would like to create more space to know God through His Word rather than feeling pressured to simply read more, I invite you to explore The 6Eleven Life Free Library.
Inside, you’ll find A Gentle Start: A Simple Guide to Reading the Bible for Beginners, Abide: A Year in God’s Word, prayer resources, Scripture-based affirmations, devotionals, and other gentle tools designed to help you build sustainable rhythms of Scripture, prayer, and reflection.
As you use these resources, remember that the goal is never simply to finish another reading plan or accumulate more biblical information. Let what you read become an invitation to notice God’s character, talk with Him about what you are learning, and allow His Word to gradually shape the way you trust and follow Him.
You can access the Free Library here: Free Library Link
Closing Reflection
There will always be more to learn about God.
We could spend a lifetime studying Scripture, reading good books, listening to wise teachers, and exploring the richness of Christian faith without ever reaching the end of what there is to discover. That is part of the beauty of following an infinite God.
But somewhere within all that learning, we must remember why we wanted to know more in the first place.
The goal was never simply to become people who can explain God well. It was to become people who walk with Him, trust Him, recognize His character, obey His Word, enjoy His presence, and increasingly allow what we know about Him to shape the way we live.
Jesus described eternal life in remarkably relational terms when He prayed:
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” — John 17:3
So keep studying Scripture. Keep asking questions. Keep learning from people who can help you understand God’s Word more faithfully.
But also leave room to sit with what you are learning.
Turn knowledge into prayer. Allow truth to become trust. Let trust lead you towards obedience and give your relationship with God enough time and attention for what you know in your mind to travel slowly into your heart.
Because there is a beautiful difference between being able to say, I know that God is faithful, and reaching the place where, after walking with Him through ordinary days, unanswered questions, unexpected blessings, difficult seasons, acts of obedience, answered prayers, and quiet mornings, you can say with a deeper confidence:
I know Him.
As Hosea 6:3 encourages us:
“Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord.”
There is always more of God to know, and that kind of knowing is worth a lifetime of seeking.
Need some more encouragement?
Listen to the podcast –
Watch The 6Eleven Life on YouYube:
Click Here to Start Watching: The 6Eleven Life YouTube Channel
The Gentle Reset Resources:
- The Gentle Reset Ultimate Bundle: Get Yours Here
- The 21-Day Devotional Guide: Click Here
- The Prayer Companion: Click Here
- The Scripture Anchor Collection: Click Here
- The Reflection Companion: Click Here
Check Out My Quiet Time Shelf
- 📖 NKJV Large Print Bible (always first) – Get Here
- 📚 Enduring Word Bible Commentary – Get Here
- 📖 Proverbs Prayers by John Mason – Get Here
- 📖 Becoming the Woman God Wants Me to Be by Donna Partow – Get Here
- 📖 Draw the Circle by Mark Batterson – Get Here
- 🌿 Gentle Reset Ultimate Bundle by The 6Eleven Life – Get Here
- 📔 Conversations with My Father Prayer Journal – Get Here
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Biyai
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