Steps on the Way to God – Steps on the Spiritual Path
Steps on the Way to God
We speak to you about steps on the way to God: what is the nature of the relationship between us and God—how does it begin, how does it develop, and to what does it reach?
Steps on the Spiritual Path
Life with God begins by encountering Him. God meets you on the road of life and offers you Himself in some way, so a bond is formed…
And the first step is to know God; and knowing God is other than mere knowledge of God, which begins and does not end…
And when you come to know God and His ways, you feel how far you are from Him and how much you oppose Him, so the fear of God begins to enter you.
As the Scripture says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 9:10).
The fear of God calls you to reconciliation with Him; it leads you to repentance and to working according to His commandments. And as you walk in the way of the Lord and in obedience to Him, you feel the delight of this new life and you love it.
Thus you do not remain in fear; rather, it leads you to love.
And as you deepen in the love of God, fear gradually departs from you. As Saint John the Apostle said: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).
In a life of love you come to know God more. The more you know Him, the more you love Him; and the more you love Him, the more your knowledge of Him increases, and He reveals Himself to you.
In truth, we do not know God as we ought. As the Apostle Paul said: “For now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known… but then face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). And before the phrase “face to face,” a person stands astonished… What does this phrase mean?
There are people who know God by mere intellectual knowledge—knowledge from books, or from listening to preaching and teaching, or from theology, or from the Creed…
But intellectual knowledge alone is not sufficient unless it is supported by fellowship; and through fellowship you come to know God by experiential knowledge, more certain and in a practical way.
The demons know God with an intellectual knowledge—an incomplete knowledge, not the knowledge of love and fellowship. Therefore our teacher James the Apostle says about them: “The demons believe—and tremble!” (James 2:19).
Intellectual knowledge is a superficial knowledge; it has not entered into the depth.
By it you may know some of God’s attributes, but you stop at the titles and do not fully know what lies within them—matters that astonish the mind and fill the heart with feelings of love, reverence, and longing…
Who among people has truly been able to know God?!
Therefore our Lord Jesus Christ says to the Father: “O Father… the world has not known You, but I have known You” (John 17:25). And the Gospel also says: “No one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27).
Let us pray that God may reveal Himself to us so that we may know Him, for the knowledge of God is very deep—desired by the apostles and the saints. For the sake of knowing God, they sacrificed everything in order to know Him.
Listen to the Apostle Paul as he says: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ.” For the sake of this knowledge Paul the Apostle lost everything and counted it as refuse, saying: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings” (Phil. 3:7–10).
Before this kind of knowledge, we ask ourselves: Do we truly know God? Or as the Scripture says: “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith” (2 Cor. 13:5).
Is Christ to us “that which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled” (1 John 1:1)? Or is He merely One we have heard about from others?
This knowledge makes us ask: Do we have fellowship with Him?
As Saint John the Apostle advises us, saying: “That you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).
But how do we know Him? Can the limited human being know the unlimited God? Can his mind and heart contain this?
In reality, the more we live with God, the more we know something about Him. And the deeper our life with Him becomes, the more we know. Then God reveals to us things about Himself, and amazement and wonder take hold of us, and we stand astonished, our tongues bound in silence, unable to express what we have known of God, because they are “inexpressible things,” as the Apostle said.
Indeed, the knowledge of God truly leads to astonishment… And God may reveal to us more knowledge than we can bear, and we cry out, saying, “Enough, enough,” for our humanity while in the body cannot endure all this…
What God reveals to us about Himself is what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man.
It is the greatest bliss in the Kingdom—to have fellowship with God and to know Him. Without this, the Kingdom would not be a kingdom, and bliss would not be bliss… We shall truly delight in God and in the excellence of knowing Him.
Even in the Kingdom, we shall know God gradually, according to our capacity.
Each day God will reveal to us something of Himself that fills us with happiness and joy. But when shall we know Him “face to face”? When shall we know God with perfect knowledge? The Lord Jesus Christ says: “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).
Thus, the knowledge of God is not an easy thing. It begins here on earth, but it is not completed except in eternity…
Those who did not know God on earth will not know Him in heaven, nor will He know them. I fear that God may say to these on the last day: “Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you!’” (Matt. 7:23).
Here, then, is a foretaste of the Kingdom: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8). And whoever has not tasted God here will not enjoy Him in eternity.
Thus, in your relationship with the Lord, you can ask yourself: Have you truly tasted the Lord? Have you felt how sweet He is in your mouth, how beautiful His fellowship is, and how it is more delightful than everything else?
Therefore, you must enter into fellowship with God in order to know Him…
You must live with Him and experience Him. He must have an actual presence in your life—dwelling within you. You feel His dwelling in you; you feel His grace, His work, and His love. He speaks through your mouth and guides your life. Your heart truly becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit. And you fully realize the meaning of His saying: “And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).
Have you experienced the phrase, “Abide in Me, and I in you” (John 15:3)?
“He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit” (John 15:5). Have you experienced this mutual abiding in your spiritual life? Have you felt how necessary it is for your life in order to bear fruit? And are all your spiritual fruits the result of this abiding alone?
In your abiding in God, have you been separated from everything else?
For the Scripture says: “And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial?” (2 Cor. 6:14). Have you felt that you are a branch in the vine, through which the sap and life of the vine flow, so that you bear fruit of the same kind? In your abiding in God, have you become steadfast in righteousness, in truth, and in holiness?
There are certain expressions spoken by those who have experienced the Lord—have you known their depth in your life? And can you say them with them?
Have you known the meaning of the phrase “and be found in Him” (Phil. 3:9), by whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28)? And have you experienced the phrase: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20)? Are you truly walking in the same path that those fathers walked?
One of the signs of your life with God is that you are content with Him…
David, who experienced the Lord, said to Him: “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You” (Ps. 73:25). And he also said: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Ps. 23:1).
Are you like this? Has God completely satisfied your life so that you are no longer in need of anything else beside Him? Has God become for you the all in all? Or does your heart still beat with other matters in the world, longing for and desiring them, whether few or many?
Consider the life of our desert fathers and hermits as an example of contentment with God…
How one of them would spend sixty or eighty years without seeing a human face, yet he would not feel that he lacked anything—because God was able to fill his entire life, filling his heart and mind, so that no other desire remained to satisfy him.
If you have not reached this level, then begin even with a little…
Train yourself to speak with God. I do not mean mere prayer, but rather the delight of conversing with God—prayer mixed with joy, the joy of speaking with God, such that you do not wish it to end. Train yourself also to think about God, about His beautiful attributes, His good dealings, His glory and greatness, His love and kindness, His heaven and His Kingdom—and let this thought satisfy your heart.
In addition to the delight of speaking with God and the pleasure of thinking about Him, train yourself also to involve God in your life…
Rely on Him completely. Let Him be the One who manages your affairs; present all your matters to Him so that He may take charge of them and arrange them. You rely on many people and on your own thinking to manage your life and solve your problems—have you thought of relying entirely on the Lord, of casting all your burdens upon Him? Have you trained yourself to trust Him? Have you become accustomed to waiting for the Lord, from the morning watch until the night, with all faith?
Have you entered into a life of fellowship with the Lord?
Thus you do nothing on your own, no matter how simple it may be; rather, you are a co-worker with God. You feel the hand of God in your life, and you feel that without Him you have done nothing in your life: “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:3).
Do not be passive in your relationship with God—take a stand toward Him…
And this stand is to become His, to surrender your life to Him, and to live with complete faithfulness in your relationship with Him, advancing each day one new step that deepens your bond with Him, singing with the bride of the Song of Songs: “My beloved is mine, and I am his” (Song 2: …
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