Something I Never Noticed in Matthew 7:21-23

As I’m setting out to write this article, I can already tell it is going to make me uncomfortable. It might mean that I’m off and that bit of me that wants to kick against all this is Spirit. But I think more than anything it’s my flesh screaming out and hiding behind familiar bushes where I often find myself trying to escape the Lord’s gaze. Here goes…

Remember that song, In the Secret, that we used to sing all the time about 10 years ago? The chorus went something like this:

I want to know You,
I want to hear Your voice
I want to know You more.

I thought of this song again today when I was meditating on Matthew 7:21-23. I found myself praying a similar prayer, and then I read the text again. The problem it seems isn’t that this person didn’t “know” Jesus…or know about Jesus…the problem was that Jesus didn’t know them. Now, I’m not saying that God doesn’t want to be known—that’s what the message of Christmas. But I’m wondering if there is another—maybe even more shocking—truth about Christmas. Maybe these lyrics  also have a place:

You want to know me
You want to hear my voice
You want to know me more

I might just be slow to the party but this truth is really messing me over. It makes me a bit uncomfortable because I know that the chief end of man is to glorify God. It’s about knowing who God is and not fundamentally about God knowing us. He’s omniscient. There isn’t a thing about me that he doesn’t know. But the word in Matthew 7:23 translated “never knew you” isn’t a knowing facts word—it’s an intimate word, a knowing you word. Is it possible that the lyrics should change even again…change to where part of our hearts cry should be something like this:

I want you to know me
I want you to hear my voice
I want you to know me more

No more hiding. No more distance. No more self-focus. But a heart that actually trusts the Lord. A heart that loves Him so much that you don’t just want to know facts about Him, or be a casual observer, or just know Him but to actually be known by Him. To step out from behind the bushes, drop your fig-leaf, and in all your nakedness say, “Here I am. Me. The whole screwed up and tattered and broken and yet somehow beautiful to You me.”

Matthew 7 tells me that my eternity depends on that type of intimacy. It’s sad to say but it doesn’t take intimacy with the Lord to do ministry. Matthew 7 tells us that much. You can prophesy, cast out demons, and do many mighty works but not have a shred of intimacy with the Lord. But it does take intimacy to have a heart that says, “lay me bare, here I am. I want you to know me.”

It’s not that God is some feeble deity just waiting for us to soften. “Why won’t you let him come in?” No, that’s not the type of lover who is pursuing us. He’s wooing and breaking and tearing and healing and undragoning us so that we’ll come to that spot where we say, “know me”.

This is hard for me. I can do ministry. I can pursue knowing about God. I can even pursue knowing God in an intimate way in which He shares Himself with me. But what I’m really struggling with is the fact that God would really want me. I shouldn’t be shocked. He pursued the harlot in Hosea with steadfast love. And I’ve known for the longest time that I’m that harlot and He is pursuing me. But I guess I never realized what he meant when he said “You must dwell as mine…”

So how do I go about this…?