Daily Devotional

Do not misunderstand what Jesus means by knew. He is not saying He lacked information; He knew everything about these people, down to the number of miracles on their list. To know someone in Scripture is relationship language. It is the covenant word for the bond between God and His people. So I never knew you is not a failure of memory. It is a formal and final rejection. And then, shockingly, Jesus calls a life full of ministry lawlessness, because all of it was a veneer laid over a heart that had never actually surrendered to the will of God.

Yet hidden inside this terror is mercy. Jesus does not say, I used to know you and then I stopped. He says, I never knew you. That word never is a gift to every true believer, because it means a real relationship with Christ cannot be lost. Those who were turned away were never His to begin with, and those who are truly His are His forever. Paul says the same comfort from the other side: the Lord knows those who are His (2 Timothy 2:19).

Here is the difference that decides everything. A fan can know a thousand facts about a person he has never met, while that person never even knows the fan’s name. On that day some will discover to their horror that they were fans of Jesus but never friends of Jesus; the relationship they assumed was mutual was never real. Every human heart aches to be fully known and fully wanted. The gospel says to those who are His: you are known, you are chosen, you are loved. As Paul writes, if anyone loves God, he is known by God (1 Corinthians 8:3).