We who know God know him not by reason or by the five senses but by a deep and profound revelation of God to our innermost being. This is what Paul highlights here in a section that takes some concentrated thought to understand. Our experience of God is much more intimate than that of our closest relationships with people. We can know other people only from the outside, by their appearance and their communication to our senses. We have no direct experience of their ‘spirit’. But we can have a direct experience of God’s Spirit because he has put his Spirit within us. This makes our relationship with God something far more profound and mysterious than any other relationship we have. There is a sense in which I know God as I know myself. I can experience the desires and concerns of God directly as if they were my desires and concerns. As Paul says: “We have the mind of Christ.” God does not need to explain something to me verbally. He can download his concern directly into my spirit. He can bypass the indirect channels of communication that so limit human relationships. Learning to live with God and live by God’s Spirit is something that we need to learn by practice. We must remain ever sensitive to his desires and concerns as they well up within us. The more we are willing to receive what God is saying and doing within us, the more sensitive we will become to him, and the more we will be transformed by his Spirit.
Ask God to make you more sensitive to him. Remind yourself regularly to stop and listen for his voice.
Read 1 Corinthians 2:6-16
