How come so many Christians don’t really know God?

It seems like a weird, even dumb, question. How come so many Christians don’t really know God? It's a very important question with a very disturbing answer. It's all too easy for Christians to not know God! The headline shocked me. 51% of Churchgoers Don’t Know of the Great Commission, according to a Barna survey. I also found it very disappointing. Depressing even.

If we don't even know, let alone do, The Great Commission, then we really don't know what Jesus told us to do for His Kingdom. Or, even worse, we know, but we don't care enough about Jesus' commands to us to follow through on them.

Check out the adjacent image. Yes, it's a forest, but it represents our journey through this life. So many paths. A bridge to cross - maybe. It's dark in parts of the forest. And we can't see what's ahead. If we don't have a map, we can easily get lost.

Plus, in the forest things change. Trees fall down, blocking some paths. New trees grow. There might be bears, mountain lions, snakes, all sorts of hazards. We need a guide to navigate through the huge forest of life. Will it be the Holy Spirit? Or we will go it alone? Maybe even take a "guide" who doesn't know the way. Or has a different destination in mind.

So many choices!

No wonder the path Jesus tells us about is so narrow. Even many of those who think they're on it actually aren't on it at all! They may not even be close!

So, what do we do? How do we get through this forest maze? We'll see as we go along.

Setting the stage to answer: How come so many Christians don’t really know God?

Let's begin to set the stage by looking at something Jesus said, and finding it in the image above.

The Narrow and Wide Gates - Matthew

Mt 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

And no wonder so many non-Christians look at so many of us and decide they want nothing to do with our God! I'm a Christian, and I wouldn't want anything to do with the God some self-proclaimed Christians follow. Why not? Because he's not the God in the Bible. At least, not by their words and actions he isn't.

Ultimately, only God Himself will decide the fate of all of us. At least, that's what we're told. It's all up to a fickle God. But that's not really true.

John 3:16

Jn 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”

Some people know only about verse 16 - and say God loves everyone, so we're all saved. No matter what we do. But that ignores verse 18 - and a whole bunch of other stuff in the Bible.

Others, because they don't know verse 17, think God's just out to get us. One wrong move and we're toast. Human toast in Hell, I guess? But that belief ignores pretty much everything Jesus said.

But my point here is this. Don't give up on God just because of what you see in people who claim to be following Him.

In case you don't remember or don't know, here's what I mean by the narrow path.

The narrow and wide paths are important to know about for Christians. Not because they're literal paths, but for what they represent.

Christians cannot know God if we're on the wrong path

See that picture above? There are many paths there. Some are well-worn. Others are harder to find. Not impossible to find. But we're not going to go down that path without the Holy Spirit. We'll learn more about how that happens as we move through this.

The thing is though, the picture is representative of the paths leading to the narrow and wide gates, it's also representative of the fact that most people won't get to the narrow gate.

The weird, and sad, thing is, that narrow path isn't all that hard to see. That is, if we truly want to see it. Especially for someone who goes to church. And it should be even more so for someone who claims to be Christian. And yet, we can be blinded. For instance, blinded by the popularity of the wider path. Blinded by one thing that attracts us to the wide path, because we just can't imagine living without it. And so, we take that wider path. Sometimes, even when we really should know better.

In other words, most people won't get to Heaven. No matter how sure we might be that everyone's going to Heaven, the Bible very clearly says that's not gonna happen! It even says many people who call themselves Christians aren't going to make it there. Why? Because so many Christians aren't on the right path either! They're on the well-traveled path on the left.

How do we know so many Christians are on the wrong path?

Why do I say lots of Christians are on the wrong path? Because Jesus told us. It's right here, in the telling of the 10 lepers who were healed. Please notice as you read it, that physical healing is not spiritual healing. Physical healing is not spiritual salvation.

Let's check it out.

Ten Healed of Leprosy

Lk 17:11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” 

Notice, all ten of these guys knew Jesus could heal them. It's not like they didn't know He was something "special". They even called Jesus "master". They knew something. But not enough.

Lk 17:14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

And here we see that Jesus healed all ten of them. Physically healed, that is. But, we must keep reading or else we'll miss the reality of exactly what did and didn't happen.

Lk 17:15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

One of the ten returned to Jesus after being healed. Yes, all ten were healed. Physically, We read that in verse 14. However, only one returned to Jesus. Only one knew what happened.

And that one who returned to give praise to Jesus was a Samaritan. Why does that matter? Because Samaritans were hated by the Jews. Their heritage came from mixed marriages between Jews and Assyrians during the exile. And they were among the most hated people, up there with tax collectors, in the Jewish culture of the time.

Lk 17:17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Jesus points out the obvious. Nine of the ten He cleansed/physically healed did not return. They maybe knew what happened, but whether they knew or not, they had no time or praise for Jesus.

And so, the only one who was "made well", who was "saved", to use the modern church word, was the Samaritan.

Hopefully, that gives you an idea of the difference between claiming to be something/know something, and actually being that thing. In the event above, it was ten people who claimed to know Jesus could heal them. Today, among others, it feels like self-proclaimed Christians who don't really know God.

In both cases, the lepers or today's Christians who don't know God, they are losing out. Big time. Let's take a look.

No wonder so many Christians don't know God!

Can you begin to see the problem? Why so many Christians don't know God? Why some Christians don't know God well? And further, why so many so-called Christians don't know God at all?

How do we know that so many Christians don’t really know God?

Let's take a deeper look at what happened with the lepers. Earlier, we looked at the John 3:16 passage. Not just the one verse, but the following ones as well, to bring in some context. Here's just verse 16, so keep the context in mind.

Jn 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 

Too many people read that and think, all I have to do is believe this and I'm saved. Period. Nothing else required.

But then the "sinners" prayer gets added. That's OK - it's just some words. I'm saved and still don't have to do anything after I said that prayer.

That's what happened with nine of the ten lepers. Yes, they were healed of leprosy. But they were not saved. Ten were physically healed. But only the one who was made well was saved.

Why is that? Because of one simple word. Simple to us, that is. It's the word "in". You see, we read "believe in", and we comprehend "believe". We assume "in" doesn't have any real meaning to it. But it certainly does. When we actually understand "believe in", we realize that "believe" is about the brain but "believe in" is a life-transforming concept.

The one who is made well is saved because he is transforming his life.
The ones who are healed, but not made well, undergo no such transformation.

That is very much at the heart of the issue here. Do we want to believe, but not change? Or are we willing to believe in and become a new person?

It's not like this is a hidden concept. Everyone who reads much of the New Testament comes across it. But not so many are willing to actually do it. And our brains are pretty good at shutting out things we don't want to see/hear/read.

Knowing/fulfilling The Great Commission is part of knowing God

If you're a regular reader here then you know I write about The Great Commission a whole lot. And I talk about it often in classes. Given what we're about to read, I must include it here, so we're at least, hopefully, all on the same page of the same book.

The Great Commission

Mt 28:16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

So, with that, let's lay out some of the issues, and then go through them.

• Just over half of church-going Christians don't know the Great Commission at all.
  • Only 17% of church-going Christians can say what they think the Great Commission means.
  • 25% of church-going Christians have heard of the Great Commission but don't remember/know what it means.
  • Only 37% of church-going Christians recognized the Great Commission from a list of five "well known" passages.
• In general, younger church-going Christians are less aware of the Great Commission
• Some denominations talk about the Great Commission more than others.
• Given the general lack of awareness of the Great Commission, how much of it is actually lived out in practice?
  • Baptism
  • Making disciples
  • Teaching potential disciples
  • Teaching disciples to obey everything Jesus has commanded
• Given that the Great Commission is in fact a command, can you now see why so many Christians don't really know God?
• Conclusion - we'll look at a comparison with the Letter to the Church in Sardis from Revelation.

With that outline in mind, here we go. I will say right up front though I feel these findings are very sad. We, Christians, are supposed to be Jesus' representatives here on earth until He returns. But are we doing a good job? I fear not. For anyone who reads this, I can only pray it helps to urge us to do a better job. To be more Christ-like. And to go out into the world to fulfill Jesus' Commission to us, rather than hiding inside the church and just being happy with that.

Just over half of church-going Christians don't know the Great Commission at all

Something less than half of church-going Christians don't know the Great Commission at all. That just sounds bad. It may be slightly less awful when we see the definition Barna uses for church-going Christians:

CHURCHGOERS are defined for this sample as those who have attended church within the past six months.

Like I said, maybe some small comfort from that definition. Depending on when the survey was done, that's probably referring to someone who went to church either on Christmas or Easter. (The research was published in October, 2018, but the article doesn't say when the survey was actually taken.) And I know, most of them and some of you consider people like that to be Christians. However, I can't help but wonder, does God feel the same way? Is that kind of effort really in line with what Jesus said when asked about the Greatest Commandment?

The Greatest Commandment - Matthew

22:34-40 pp — Mk 12:28-31