It is one thing to know the person of God, i.e having knowledge of him. It’s another thing to deeply experience God for yourself. Knowledge is taught experience is acquired.
I don’t blame entirely those job offers that stipulate they only need people with experience, making it hard for graduates to get a job. They understand the importance of experience
The difference
You can have knowledge of God as a result of environmental factors, such as parental influence, attending a christian school, going to church etc, when the true test of you faith comes, it is experience of God that will keep you trusting.
When you have knowledge of God, you believe he exist because you have been told he does. You read about him in the bible and listen to sermons every Sunday about the greatness of God and your faith is built up.
But because you have not experienced God for yourself, when you find yourself in a suituation where you are not under the “knowledge covering” gradually you begin to lose faith and your true inner nature is revealed.
Surely, faith comes by hearing and hearing of the word of God. But it takes a personal effort on your part to experience God. Experience and knowledge do work better together.
The parable of the sower comes to mind. It was only those seeds that fell on fertile ground that were able to germinate and really flourish because they gained deep seated roots.
When you have experienced God, the difference is clear. You find yourself seeking only to please God. It’s not about the work you do/did at church or the people you are nice to or even the amount of tithes and offering you give. (Its great to do all that).
It’s is not even about what you stand to gain. You do not need accolades or recognition. Its just a deep feeling of wanting to do the things that would please God.
The danger
As an individual, I have been in both situations. I could talk the talk, quote the quotables, but just like the Pharisee and sadduces, white on the outside but inside full of dead men’s bones.
The danger of just knowing about God because you have heard about him all your life without experiencing him fully is that, you may end up thinking that you are perfect and its by your works you are saved.
You may depend solely on how many ‘thou shalt not’ you obey to measure your salvation.
It becomes easy to think that because you do all the supposed right things, It’s your righteousness that saves you.
Like the young man in Matthew 19 v 20, you keep all the commandments, so what are you lacking?
I must say, we are all striving towards perfection. The beauty of striving is that it is a daily, hourly, moment by moment event. Nothing automatic here.
Truth.Knowledge and experience must go together. Personal encounter.