From Information to Encounter: The Beginning of My Journey withJesus

Part 1 of "Knowing God" — a short history of my journey with Jesus

From about age 3 to age 33, I accumulated information about God. Some of it came from Sunday School and ministry leaders teaching from the Bible — mostly the KJV, which was a challenge for a child to understand.

Looking back now, I'd say much of what I believed about God wasn't accurate. But one core belief about Jesus was true: He is the only begotten Son of God, born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life, died on the cross to pay for the sins of mankind, and rose from the dead after three days in the grave. By grace (heavenly influence on your heart), through faith in Him, you will be saved.

Sunday School in a Church Basement

My "religious" life started in a Church of the Nazarene Sunday School, in the basement of a building at the corner of East 10th Street and Lincoln Ave. in Loveland, CO. Charlie Rose drove an old school bus into our neighborhood and picked up kids whose

parents wanted a few quiet hours on Sunday morning.

One of my earliest memories is a painting that hung in the hallway outside our classrooms: Jesus standing at a large wooden gate, knocking. I believe it was the work of Warner Sallman (1892–1968), a noted artist in both Protestant and Catholic

circles.

Behold, I stand at the door [of your heart] knocking...Rev 3:20

The Morning Everything Changed

After years of journeying through life without the Savior's Spirit in me, I was graced by that Spirit to confess with my mouth what I believed in my heart, and I declared Jesus to be Lord of my life. That happened on Resurrection Day, April 1980, in a little Catholic church — St. Catherine's on the Rock, on Highway 7 south of Estes Park, CO.

I didn't fully understand what happened to me when I prayed the sinner's prayer. All I knew was that the fear of losing my wife— the fear that had driven us to church for the first time in three years — was gone. That prayer didn't make me a Catholic, but

I belonged to Someone Else, and He belonged to me. I knew he had come into my heart.

Knowledge Isn't the Same as Transformation

Knowing information about God can be useful, but it isn't transformative. My own life is proof. I knew "sex before marriage" was prohibited in the Bible. That knowledge alone did not keep me from going down that path. Shortly after April 1980, we started attending the Loveland Assembly of God — a bit ironic, since as a teenager I'd sworn off

that church after discovering it was "a holy roller church," vowing it would be the last one I'd ever attend. And so it came to pass.

There I sat under Pastor Barry Palser, who taught foundational Christian beliefs and imparted his for God's Word, and studying the Bible — and his love for everyone, no matter who they were. I have several stories of putting Pastor Barry to the test, and he

always passed.

My time at "the Rez"

From May 1980 until my retirement as Counseling Pastor in 2017, I attended what became known as Resurrection Fellowship, or "Rez." (We had a two-year absence when we lived in Stratham, NH for my job with HP, but our hearts never left.) Pastor John Stocker hired me in January 1993 as Counseling Pastor, responsible for discipleship training, marriage ministry, small groups, greeters, altar ministry, baptism, and more. My Bible education came largely from Wednesday Night Bible Study with Pastor John in the 1980s. Pastor John taught through most of the books of the New and Old Testaments — some more than once. I once calculated that time at roughly 624 hours in the Word with Pastor John. I still see it as the most valuable time I've ever spent.

Pastor John's passion for "rightly dividing" the Word of Truth was as contagious as Pastor Barry's passion for reading and studying it. My journey with Jesus has taken me from a moment of deliverance from fear to a fear of the Lord that both shakes me and holds me tenderly, daily. That paradox — being shaken and being held tenderly — is impossible to fully explain. It's like living in the tension between what is real according to God's reality and what is real according to my own experiential knowledge, all the while learning to fully trust Him in everything.

Which brings me to the subject of this series: what does it actually mean to know God?

Next: [Two Ways of Knowing — Eido, Gnosko, and the God Who Wants to Be Known]

— Pastor Bill Kline © 2026. You may freely share this article, but please do not include it in any published or copyrighted work without permission. Jesus Freedom Journey Ministries — jfjm.org — ministry@jfjm.org