What does it mean to know someone? When I say, “I know him or her,” what am I saying? Am I saying I know something about them? Or perhaps, am I perceiving things about them? Maybe I am even saying, “I know all about them. I know how they think, what motivates them, their fears, what they take pleasure in, what they believe, what they think they believe, who and what they love, and who and what they hate.” I say, “I know their soul and I know their body.” However, many acquaintances, friends, family, and even spouses who say they know someone, later sometimes confess, “I guess I never really knew him or her at all.”
If I say, “I know God” as verse 10 states, “Continue your love to those who know you,” what am I saying? Jesus, speaking about the judgment to come said, “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'” (Matthew 7:22-23) Those people obviously knew something about Jesus and even did things for his namesake. Yet, he states they did not know him, and thus he never knew them.
I know one certain way to really know a person’s soul. I cannot know them if I do not spend time interacting, that is communing with them. How can a disciple be in a state of intimate, heightened sensitivity and receptivity with the Lord Jesus?
Apostle Paul considered his past religious concepts based on his perception of God’s word rubbish. He wrote, “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ–the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:8-11)
