Knowledge of God: The Real Reasons Every Believer Needs It

The world hands you a short list of things to be proud of.

Be smart. Be strong. Be rich. Build a name people respect.

Then comes Jeremiah 9:23-24, where God crosses out the whole list and writes one thing in its place. Do not glory in your wisdom, your strength, or your money, He says.

Glory in this alone, that you understand and know Me. That single sentence presses a question on us. If the knowledge of God is the one thing worth boasting in, why do we treat it as optional? Why do we need it at all, and what does it actually do in an ordinary believer’s life on an ordinary Friday?

Why We Need the Knowledge of God More Than We Realize

Read what God says slowly. “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

God takes the three things human beings build their lives on and sets them aside. He does not call wisdom, strength, or wealth evil; He simply says they are the wrong place to find your glory. The one thing He points to is that you know Him, and not in a vague way. He tells you exactly what to know: that He is the LORD who shows mercy, does what is just, and does what is right, because that is what He delights in.

So the knowledge of God is far more than a hobby for people who like deep study. It is the one possession God Himself says is worth everything. And we need it not now and then but for the most ordinary parts of daily Christian life and service. The reasons reach into our assurance, our work for God, our money and our fears, our turning from sin, and whether we finish the race at all.

The Two Kinds of Knowledge of God You Cannot Live Without

Before we go through the reasons we need it, we have to be clear about what we are talking about, because the knowledge of God comes in two parts, and one of them is often neglected.

Knowing God by Experience: Born Again and Carrying His Spirit

The first kind is the knowledge that comes from being saved. You turn from sin, you receive the Spirit of Christ, and you come to possess eternal life. This is personal. It is the difference between reading a man’s biography and being his child.

“And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:11-12).

Paul puts the line even more sharply. “Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Romans 8:9). Either the Spirit of God lives in you because you have come to Him, or He does not.

There is no halfway. This experiential knowledge is where everything begins, because you cannot truly know about a God you have never actually met.

Knowing God Through His Word

The second kind is the knowledge of who God is that you gain from His Word: His character, His attributes, and the way He works. This is how you learn that He is merciful, that He is just, that He keeps His promises, that He hates sin and saves sinners. And this knowledge is meant to show up in how you live. “Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3).

You need both. Experiential knowledge without the Word leaves you sincere but easily misled. Knowledge of the Word without the personal experience of salvation leaves you informed but unchanged, able to discuss God like a subject in school while never having met Him. The two together are what Scripture means by the knowledge of God.

Read also: What It Means to Walk in the Spirit

What Happens to People Who Lack the Knowledge of God

Look again at what God said in Hosea. His people were not destroyed by their enemies first. They were destroyed by a gap inside them. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).

When a believer does not know God well, the door is left open for the very thing that ruins them, and an honest heart and a full church calendar do not close that door on their own.

It shows up as error and deception. Jesus told a group of religious men exactly why they were wrong. “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). They were not careless people.

They were committed, religious, respected, and still in error, and the reason was a lack of real knowledge of God and His Word. Paul warned Timothy about the same danger, of people whose words “will increase unto more ungodliness” and whose teaching can overthrow the faith of others (2 Timothy 2:16-18).

Picture a sincere believer who hears a teaching that sounds spiritual and a little flattering. It moves them, so they accept it. They never tested it against Scripture, because they never knew the Word well enough to test anything.

That is how sincere people can get pulled into wrong things. The lack of the knowledge of God is not a small weakness. It is the opening the enemy looks for.

Read also: Practicing Daily Accountability to God

Knowledge of God Gives You Assurance That You Belong to Him

Here is the first reason you need it, and it is deeply personal. The experiential knowledge of God is how you know you are actually His child and not just a member of a congregation. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself” (1 John 5:10). There is something settled on the inside of a person who truly knows God.

Jesus defined eternal life in terms of this very knowledge. “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). Eternal life is first of all knowing God, beginning now, before it is ever a place you go. To have that knowledge is to have the life, and to lack it is to lack the life, whatever your church record says.

Think of the believer who does everything right on the outside, attends faithfully, serves willingly, and yet quietly carries a fear they cannot shake, that they only know about God and have never really met Him. That fear gets answered not by trying harder at church activities but by coming to actually know God through His Son, and then the witness is on the inside and the wondering stops.

Read also: The Importance of Repentance in the Bible

Knowledge of God Makes You Useful in His Work

The knowledge of God does not only settle your own soul. It makes you useful to others. “The people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits” (Daniel 11:32).

Strength to do real work for God flows out of knowing Him. People who only know about Him tend to stay on the sidelines. People who know Him are the ones He uses.

This is why a worker for God needs solid knowledge of God and His ways. You can only lead others as far as you have gone yourself. You can only give sound counsel if you know what God actually says. You can only encourage the hurting and prepare younger believers if you have something real to hand them.

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Scripture itself is given so “that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The priest’s lips, Malachi says, “should keep knowledge,” and people seek the law at his mouth (Malachi 2:7). You cannot give what you do not have.

It also makes you able to warn people rightly. When someone is heading the wrong way, or believing something that will hurt them, the believer who knows God can speak with clarity instead of staying silent or saying the wrong thing.

Picture the new small group leader frozen by a hard question they cannot answer, or the friend who watches someone slide into sin and has nothing solid to say. The answer to both is the same. Know God more, and you will have something to give when it matters.

Read also: How to Walk With God

Knowledge of God Steadies You When the Wicked Prosper and Money Is Tight

Some of the hardest days of faith come from watching the wrong people win. The knowledge of God is what keeps you steady when it happens. “Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way” (Psalm 37:7). You can only rest in someone you know.

The psalmist almost lost his footing over this exact thing. “I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked,” he admitted. It tormented him until one moment changed everything.

“When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end” (Psalm 73:3, 16-17). What rescued him was not a change in his circumstances but coming into God’s presence and understanding how the story actually ends. Knowing God reframed what he was looking at.

The same steadiness holds in hard times and a hard economy. “The eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him … To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine” (Psalm 33:18-19). The one who knows God is like “a tree planted by the waters” that does not panic in the year of drought (Jeremiah 17:8).

That is where real contentment comes from, because “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6), and God has promised, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). This is the steadiness of a person who knows the One holding them, not a promise that you will get rich or that every bill will be easy. The coworker who cuts corners and gets the promotion, the parent lying awake over money, both of them can find solid ground, and the ground is the knowledge of God.

Read also: 10 Reasons to Have Faith in God

Knowledge of God Is How You Turn From Sin

Many believers fight the same sin for years with willpower alone and keep losing. Scripture points to something deeper than willpower. “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding” (Job 28:28).

The turning away from sin grows out of knowing God and holding Him in reverence. When you truly know who He is, sin starts to look like what it is.

There is a real danger in not knowing His ways. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs 14:12).

A person can be completely sincere and completely wrong at the same time. Sincerity is not the same as safety. Without knowing God’s ways, you can feel right about a path that leads somewhere you never meant to go.

This does not mean a believer who knows God will never stumble again. It means the knowledge of God is how the turning happens. The person who keeps trying to quit a habit by gritting their teeth is missing the real power. The lasting change comes as you come to know God Himself, because the fear of the Lord that grows from knowing Him is what pulls a life away from evil.

Read also: Why You Keep Falling Into the Same Sin

Knowledge of God Keeps You Faithful to the End

Starting well is not the same as finishing. To follow God all the way to the end, and to arrive where He has promised, a believer cannot do without real knowledge of God and His ways. Jesus described His own this way. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish” (John 10:27-28).

Notice the order. The sheep know His voice, so they follow Him, and following is what carries them to the end. A sheep that does not know the shepherd’s voice can wander off when another voice calls. The believer who truly knows God can tell His voice from all the others, and keeps following through years and seasons that would scatter someone who only knew about Him.

This is the long obedience that matters. Plenty of people begin with energy. The ones who are still walking with God decades later are the ones who kept knowing Him more deeply along the way. The knowledge of God is how you start, and it is how you stay.

No Spiritual Level Is High Enough to Stop Pursuing God

If you think you are too new for this, or too far along to still need it, Scripture answers both. Paul was as advanced as any believer who ever lived, and near the end he still said his one aim was “that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10). He counted everything else as loss next to this. The most mature man in the New Testament was still reaching to know God more.

The psalmist prayed the same hunger again and again. “Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes.” “Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law.” Over and over in Psalm 119 he asked God to teach him His ways so he could walk in them.

And Solomon told his son to chase it down like buried money, to seek it as silver and search for it as for hidden treasure (Proverbs 2:1-6). No one outgrows the need to know God more. There is always more of Him to know.

Read also: How to Pray Like Jesus

How to Grow in the Knowledge of God Starting Today

None of this helps unless you can begin. The good news is that growing in the knowledge of God is within reach of any believer who wants it. You do not need a seminary degree. You need hunger and a few honest habits.

• Take the Word personally, not just as reading to finish. As you read, ask what this shows you about who God is and what He delights in. You are reading to meet Him, not only to learn facts.
• Pray the psalmist’s prayer back to God: “Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes” (Psalm 119:33). Ask Him directly to teach you His ways, and keep asking.
• Obey what you already know. “Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3). Obedience is the doorway to deeper knowing. God gives more understanding to the person already walking in what they have.
• Seek it like treasure. “If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou … find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:4-5). Give it the time and hunger you would give to anything you truly wanted.

Start with one of these this week. The believer who keeps showing up to know God, Word in hand and prayer on their lips, grows in Him whether they feel it day to day or not.

Read also: When It’s Hard to Pray

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between knowing God and knowing about God?

Knowing about God is having information, the kind you could get from a book or a sermon and repeat back. Knowing God is personal. It begins when you are saved, receive His Spirit, and come into a real relationship with Him, and it grows as you walk with Him and obey Him. A person can know a great deal about God and still not know Him, which is why both the experience of salvation and the knowledge of His Word matter.

Can a person be a Christian and still not really know God?

Many who attend church and call themselves believers have never come to truly know God, and Scripture treats that as a serious danger rather than a small gap. Hosea 4:6 says God’s own people were destroyed for lack of knowledge, and Jesus said religious men erred because they did not know the Scriptures or the power of God (Matthew 22:29). The cure is to come to God through His Son in real repentance and faith, and then to keep growing in Him through His Word.

What does “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” mean in Hosea 4:6?

It means God’s people were being ruined not mainly by outside enemies but by their own ignorance of God and His ways. They had access to the truth and neglected it, and that gap left them open to sin, deception, and judgment. The warning still stands. Knowing God is not optional protection a believer can afford to skip.

Does a mature Christian still need to grow in the knowledge of God?

Yes. The apostle Paul, far along in his walk, still said his goal was to know Christ more (Philippians 3:10), and the psalmist kept asking God to teach him His ways (Psalm 119). No believer reaches a level where there is nothing more of God to know. The pursuit is meant to last a lifetime.

Related Articles to Read Next

• How to Walk With God. What a daily walk with the God you are coming to know actually looks like.
• What It Means to Walk in the Spirit. How to live by the Spirit of Christ day to day.
• Why You Keep Falling Into the Same Sin. Why willpower alone keeps losing, and what finally changes it.
• The Importance of Repentance in the Bible. Where the personal knowledge of God begins.
• 10 Reasons to Have Faith in God. Steadiness for the days the wicked prosper and money is tight.

Go back to where Jeremiah started us. Of all the things a person could boast in, brains, strength, money, a respected name, God crosses them out and points to one. Glory in this, that you know Me. That is not a word for spiritual experts. It is daily bread for every believer, the thing that gives you assurance, makes you useful, steadies you in trouble, turns you from sin, and keeps you faithful to the end. So do not leave it as something you will get to someday. Begin this week. Open the Word to meet Him, pray “teach me Your ways,” and obey what you already know. The one thing worth glorying in is the one thing God is inviting you to start chasing today.