The Importance of Christians Seeking a Holistic Understanding of God

Hands with paper prayer house in the hands against the sky. | iStock / Getty Images Plus/Natali_Mis

Every Christian knows that God exists and believes in Him. But our knowledge of Him is so fragmented given our different belief systems. A lack of a full view of God’s image and attributes is responsible for diverse opinions among Christians. Knowing God in full and not just in part is the best thing that can happen to any Christian. “The people who know their God shall be strong and carry out great exploits” (Daniel 11:32).

A partial knowledge of who God is and what He does is responsible for our inability to be complete in Him. Understanding the triune God is essential in helping us appreciate God the Father as the originator of our salvation, God the Son as the Savior, and God the Holy Spirit as our comforter.

How we relate with God depends on our knowledge of Him. Our character and obedience is also a reflection of the degree of knowledge of God in us. Partial obedience in the lives of believers is a product of partial knowledge of who God is.

“My people are being destroyed because they don’t know me” (Hosea 4:16). Serving God with partial knowledge will inevitably lead to destruction. Many Christians who know God only as a loving and merciful God never care about His punishment and anger. Some get so familiar with Him and tend to disrespect Him without knowing it. Fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom is no longer found in the lives of many Christians today.

Jesus has given us a recommendation which we must intentionally strive to attain if we desire to have eternal life: “And this is the way to have eternal life — to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth” (John 17:3). We should commence our journey to eternal relationship with God by knowing Him holistically here on this earth with the hope that we would be found worthy when the trumpet sounds.

Knowledge of God leads to spiritual growth and maturity while partial knowledge causes us to focus on only one or two dimensions of God which results in the practice of half-baked Christianity. When we select one part of God that we cherish and discard the other parts, we become spiritually malnourished. Understanding that God is compassionate and gracious will help us shake off the feeling of condemnation and guilt, but when we do not realize that the same God is a consuming fire and that judgement day is coming, we will inevitably abuse the grace of God in our lives.

Some preachers have created another god to suit the brand of Christianity which they practice. There is now a god whose main objective is to financially prosper his worshipers. This god perfectly understands human weaknesses and allows sinners to come to church and go home as they are.

Every Christian as a matter of urgency should strive to know God in full to avoid being tossed back and forth by waves of doctrine of men. Total reliance on preachers for the full knowledge of God is risky because many preachers seem to know Him in part and teach and preach Him in part — they sadly cannot give what they do not have.

The Apostle Paul after many years as a preacher still strove to know God holistically: “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Philippians 3:10). This kind of knowledge is not intellectual and cannot be acquired in Bible study class or seminary. It is revelational, relational and empirical. Anyone who desire to have it must strive to have a personal encounter with the only true triune God of the Bible.

Oscar Amaechina is the president of Afri-Mission and Evangelism Network, Abuja, Nigeria. His calling is to take the gospel to where no one has neither preached nor heard about Jesus. He is the author of the book Mystery Of The Cross Revealed.