Saturday, March 26, 2011

Does Jesus Know Me?

The depth of a man’s mind is not seen in the answers he gives, but rather the questions he asks. My generation has largely lost our ability to ask meaningful questions and that is one of the reasons so few of us have found meaningful answers.

Today, young men dream of growing up and becoming Lebron James or Eminem, but in Jesus’ day the highest profession in that culture was a rabbi. The process to become a rabbi was grueling. The hopeful youth that attempted to become rabbis were tested by the questions they asked. It was a test to see which students could ask what no one had thought to ask. Who could see past the obvious and ask a question that would change our perspective of life? Jesus was the master of this. No one before Him had ever thought to ask such questions as “What does it profit a man to gain the world if he loses his soul?”

I realized recently that I have stumbled into the habit of reading my Bible looking only for answers. But how can I find an answer if I have never asked a question? So I changed my approach.

Reading in Mathew, I began to look for things I didn’t understand. It didn’t take long to find one. In Mathew 7, Jesus is talking to his followers and He tells them, “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!”

Now, I have read that scripture more times than I can count, but I have never stopped to see if I had any questions about what He was saying. I did.

Jesus tells the people who have been following him around in the desert for a year that someday He will tell them He never knew them. In my mind I always thought Jesus was teaching people that you cannot tell if others have a relationship with Jesus based on the outward appearance or the things they do. BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT HE SAID. He said, “I never knew you.” The One who created the universe and every atom in it didn’t know someone? The same man who said that He knows when every sparrow falls missed one of His children in the crowd? I don’t think so. So I did some research.

The book of Mathew was written in Greek, which was the most common language of the day. The author had to translate all the things Jesus had said in Aramaic into this language so that it could reach a broader audience. When Jesus said this to His followers he used an Aramaic idiom. (That means the culture that heard it understood what He was saying, but outside of those people it would not make as much sense. It’s like saying “He jumped down my throat.” In America we know that means he yelled at me without thinking about it, but if someone in China who knew how to read English read that, they may not fully grasp the idea trying to be conveyed.) When Jesus said, “I never knew you”, He used a term that was commonly used to mean sex. If a man had been with a prostitute, it was said that he “knew” her. The author of Mathew chose the Greek equivalent when he used the word genosko.

This changed my perspective on what Jesus was telling me. I always saw this as a warning about judging men based on what you saw them doing or not doing for God. But it had nothing to do with knowing the state of another man’s soul. It was about my soul.

Jesus does not care as much about what I do for Him as He does about how much I let Him in my life. I can sacrifice my life writing for Him, or teaching about Him, or “winning souls” for Him, but in the end, when I have to stand before Him, He will block all that out and see how intimate I was with Him. Did I share with Him my deepest fears? Did I vent to Him when I was frustrated? Did I set aside time just to be with Him? Oh I know that He sees the deepest parts of me, but He does not invade. He waits to be invited. I don’t want to stand before Him one day and only then realize I never truly let him “know” me.

Like any great question, the answer to this one only left me with more questions. The “How?”, the “When?”, and the always scary “If…” I need to spend some time with these questions for a while so I will leave you with this…

When was the last time you asked stopped looking in the Bible for the answers and started looking for a great question?