Category: Devotion of the Day

KNOWN AND UNKNOWN

The world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
I John 3:1

I never knew you.
Matthew 7:23

This world new not our Lord. “There standeth one among you whom ye know not.” So said John the Baptist. “If thou hadst known…If thou knewest…If ye had known” – so runs Jesus’ constant refrain while He was among us.

Because the world knew Him not it knows us not. “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you” (I Jno. 3:13). It not only does not know us, it hates us. “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them” (Jno. 17:14). We cannot love the Word and be loved by the world.

But what matters the hatred of this world if He knows and loves us? Most fearful of all pronouncements ever to fall on human ears is that word to those who profess to know Him but whose works deny Him: “I never knew you.”

“The Lord knoweth them that are his” (II Tim. 2:19). This world makes much of “knowing the right people.” What matters is to know God.

JESUS, MASTER

If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord…
Romans 10:9

In his journal, John Wesley tells us that, a few days after Aldersgate, he awoke with “Jesus, Master” in his heart and in his mouth. The true believer acknowledges Jesus not only as His Saviour but as Lord of his life. We have a strange species of believer these days, a believer who confesses Christ as Saviour but whose life rejects Him as Master. The New Testament presents no such anomaly as a Christian who “takes” Christ now for salvation and defers obeying Him as Lord until later, maybe never. The initial confession set forth in our text is “Jesus As Lord.”

If this were made clear to our “prospects” these days, and if they understood that a believer is also expected to be a disciple and a witness, it might drive away some, but we would not be embarrassed by a host of church members who call Him Lord, Lord, and do not His commandments.

John Wesley started right with “Jesus, Master” in His heart as well as in his mouth.