Known

 October 19, 2020

During the past few months of governmental lockdown of our society, I’ve pondered the role that fear plays in bringing a population under subjection. COVID has certainly yanked that chain hard! Inwardly, I rebel against what often seem senseless and overreaching restrictions, but I find even myself at times looking askance at the occasional unmasked person in Walmart, or wondering if that cough is more than just a tickle in the throat. Such thoughts are fleeting, and have little bearing on how I choose to conduct my daily life. There is one fear however, that has nipped at my heels for years.

Toward the end of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks of those who hear, but don’t heed his words. Listen to what he says:

““Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” —Matthew 7:21-23

Those words, “I never knew you,” haunt me. I’m not a touchy-feely person. Anyone who knows me even in passing can attest to that. I listen to people who testify of their relationship with Jesus—how real and invigorating it is—and I am envious. It often feels to me that my faith is more in the concept or theology of salvation rather than in the actual person of Christ. I believe that he died on the Cross, taking the burden of my sin upon him; that the just wrath of God against that sin was poured out on him in my stead. But I FEEL very little, and my daily prayers and devotional life are often internal battlegrounds of epic proportions. Occasionally, I feel lifted up, but only occasionally. And I wonder... I’ve never done much prophesying, casting out demons is certainly not my speciality, and as for doing wondrous things in Jesus’ name...well, let’s just say I’m an underachiever. So what if everything I’ve done adds up to a big fat zero? 

These are sobering words. It’s possible to do many wonderful things in Jesus’ name while failing to do the will of the Father. And there are these words: “Depart from me; I never knew you.” 

Christians often read the Old Testament with blinders on. “It’s all Law and Rules; Jesus has set us free from all that,” they say. But today, it was the Old Testament lesson that brought comfort to this oft-troubled soul. In the story of Moses’ second major encounter with the LORD on mount Sinai recorded in Exodus 33, twice we find these words on God’s own lips: “I have known you by name” (vv. 12 & 17). I deeply want to know God better, but it’s even more important that he knows me. Jesus raised the question, and surprisingly, Moses answered it. God knows me, promises to be with me, and that is enough.