…Or rather to be known (Part 1)

I continue to look for things in the scripture as I read that arrest me in my thinking. Too many people read the scriptures to afirm their beliefs, which is ok, but one should also be looking for things in the scriptures to change, refine, and sharpen your beliefs. None of us have a perfect model of how everything is, everyone needs to twik their understanding of doctrines and issues.

I had been meditating on Matthew 7,

22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’

23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’

New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Mt 7:22-23). LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

This scripture caught me, because I never weighted Jesus’ statements. We tend to have commonly used phrases come up in our minds when we read things (our models of the world trigger these things off in our minds). For this particular scripture, the common phrase that came up was “you need to really get to know Jesus”. But wait that is not what he said.

When I looked at it, the analogy of a celebrity came to my thinking. We can know a lot about that celebrity through the magazines. Millions of people know more about our pop and movie stars than they would probably like them to know about them: what they like, their mannerisms etc. But, this does not get you invited to their parties. It is only when the celebrity knows you, that you get invited to their parties.

Jesus said in this verse, “I never knew you”. That really is the crux of this scripture. Stop and think about this. The people in this verse were doing what they thought was fulfilling their callings, casting out demons, etc. In fact, I would probably not be reading too much into this scripture saying that they knew a lot about Jesus to pull those things off. Jesus’ stark statement was this is not what is going to get you through. God needs to know you.

Paul makes an interesting statement in Galations 4:

8 However at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods.

9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?

New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Ga 4:8-9). LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

His statement was, that you know God and that you are known by God. I almost get a sense of progression there. First we know God, then we come to be known by Him. I don’t want to minimize the fact that we must know God.

There are a lot more scriptures in the New Testament about knowing God than being Known by him. Here is one (John 17:3):

3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Jn 17:3). LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

There is no getting around our needing to know God. But Jesus said it was because He did not know them, that he cast them out. Ok, so how do we participate in him knowing us? Isn’t that really the question here?

In the next part of this blog we will examine the scriptures that specifically talk about what we can do to be known by God.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 31st, 2009 at 4:08 pmand is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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