How Will Jesus Know Us?
Scripture Reading — Matthew 25:1-13
He replied, “Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.”
Matthew 25:12
To truly know God is to know him as a Father who loves us and wants us to be filled with his life. To truly know Jesus is to know him as the One sent by the Father to bring his love and life to us. “I have come that [you] may have life,” Jesus said (John 10:10).
To truly know someone is to be in a relationship with them in which you share values and concerns. Sometimes we can’t get to know people because we can’t figure out why they think and act as they do. We are “wired differently.”
In the parable of the ten virgins, Jesus says something very unsettling. He implies that if we are not ready for his coming, if we are unfaithful and prefer to go our own way rather than living God’s way, there may be a time when he says to us, “I don’t know you.” In the end it will be more important if Jesus can say, “I know you” than if we claim we can say, “I know Jesus.”
How will Jesus know us?
Surely by recognizing his words in what we say and his love in what we do: bringing good news to the poor, feeding the hungry, showing hospitality to strangers, visiting the sick and those in prison, loving people as he did (see Matthew 25:31-40).
How are you showing that you really know Jesus?
Dear Jesus, help me to live in a way that is faithful to you. Guide me to say and do things that show your love to others. In your name, Amen.
About the author — Harvey Stob
Rev. Harvey Stob and his wife, Audrey, served as missionaries in Argentina for eleven years. They then served churches in Cincinnati, Ohio; Ridgewood, New Jersey; and Ann Arbor, Michigan. Harvey retired from full-time pastoral work in 2009. He and Audrey have three children and seven grandchildren.
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