Known

Luke 13:24-30 (The Message)

A lot of you are going to assume that you'll sit down to God's salvation banquet just because you've been hanging around the neighborhood all your lives.

Well, one day you're going to be banging on the door, wanting to get in, but you'll find the door locked and the Master saying, 'Sorry, you're not on my guest list.'

"You'll protest, 'But we've known you all our lives!' only to be interrupted with his abrupt, 'Your kind of knowing can hardly be called knowing. You don't know the first thing about me.'

"That's when you'll find yourselves out in the cold, strangers to grace. You'll watch Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets march into God's kingdom. You'll watch outsiders stream in from east, west, north, and south and sit down at the table of God's kingdom. And all the time you'll be outside looking in—and wondering what happened.

This is the Great Reversal: the last in line put at the head of the line, and the so-called first ending up last."

Did that get your attention?

It got mine.

Most of the folks who read this blog go to church somewhere. We are people who hang out "in the neighborhood." Most of us would call ourselves Christians.

We probably feel that we're "in." And, assurance of God's grace is a wonderful thing. It is real and right, but it has to be based on more than "knowledge."

It's about experience. It's about "knowing" God.

Listen again to what Jesus says in this translation: 'Your kind of knowing can hardly be called knowing. You don't know the first thing about me.'

What did he mean? It surely seems important to find out.

In Jesus' time he encountered many people who had Biblical knowledge. They had studied the law, inside and out. They spent time in the temple. They performed the right sacrifices and ate the right diet.

They knew the letter of the law, but often didn't know much about its spirit. Or, the spirit of the God behind it.

Let me put it this way...how well do you "know" Abraham Lincoln?

Have you read about him? Do you know what he looked like? Have you read his speeches? Do you know his biography? Do you know his historical significance?

Do you know him?

Well...it's probably more correct to say that we know "about" him.

To actually "know" him, in an experiential way, we we need a more special kind of insight. We would know his sense of humor. We would be able to read his mannerisms and expressions. We would know his private hurts and his greatest aspirations. We would have awareness of his feelings

Abraham Lincoln is a significant figure in the history of our country. We can study him and know "about" him. But we can't really know him. He's dead and buried. He's in the past. He's lost to history.

That's good enough for our knowledge of Lincoln.

But not good enough when it comes to Jesus.

Our faith teaches that he's not dead and buried. He's not lost to the past. There is a different kind of experience that's possible.

That is the realm of God's grace, and the power of the Holy Spirit. All kinds of folks...north, south, east and west...have that kind of relationship with Him.

Some are pastors...and some have never seen the inside of a church building.

We don't know and can't judge. We can simply know that when "The Great Reversal" day comes, we want to be on Jesus' side.

Let's ask God to give us that real kind of relationship.

Prayer: Father, we pray to know and to be fully known. May our relationship with you in Jesus Christ be so much more than a historical study.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.