It’s interesting how the Israelites worshipped God, but they just didn’t know Him.

Several times in the book of John, Jesus would point out to the Jews that they didn’t know His Father (God) whom they thought they worshipped. He stressed that if they did know the Father, they would also recognize that Jesus Himself is of the Father.

It’s really not a surprise because we can worship God and not know God.

Usually, one might confuse one for the other because when you worship God, it might make you feel like you know God. But do you really know Him?

However, you can know God, and by knowing Him, you worship Him as well.

John 17:25-26 (NKJV) says;

“O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.””

Amplified Classic version puts vs 26 of that same scripture this way;

“I have made Your Name known to them and revealed Your character and Your very Self, and I will continue to make [You] known, that the love which You have bestowed upon Me may be in them [felt in their hearts] and that I [Myself] may be in them.”

Jesus said these words right before he got betrayed and arrested. He knew the time had come for Him to die and in the above scripture, He was acknowledging all He had done and that He had done the work for which He came to Earth for.

One of the things Jesus did (one of Jesus’s mission, if not even His main mission/assignment) was to truly reveal the Father to the World. He died to show you the Father.

This means you can only know the Father (God) through Jesus Christ.

Sin could not have let mankind draw that near to the Father. No amount of keeping the law could have done that for us.

Instead Christ made all that happen through His birth, death, resurrection and ascension so that you have that beautiful relationship with the Father; so you truly get to know the Father and the Father’s love for you.

No wonder John 17:23 talks about the believer being in perfect unity with the Father. We’re supposed to be one with the Father, fully expressing our true nature as one with the Father.

Isn’t it a beautiful love that God has for man?

This is real love.