99. Know
John 10:14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
Jesus knows me; that’s a promise. He knows my sins and forgives them; He knows my needs and meets them. Even though He knows me and how bad I really am He loves me anyway; He also knows my problems and promises to solve them in answer to my prayers. His intimate knowledge of me is both threatening and comforting: threatening, so that I repent of sin; comforting, so that I am forgiven.
Knowing involves intimate relationship, a close connection and bond, so close that the Hebrew word for “know” can also mean sexual intercourse, the ideal closeness that two humans can share with one another.
We know that He knows us inside and out, even though we don’t even know everything about ourselves that He does. Trusting His complete knowledge of me induces me to want to know Him as much as humanly possible, although we cannot actually know much about the infinite God; but I know Him as much as He wants me to know of Him. He has revealed Himself to me to the degree that it is enough for me to love Him.
We know His voice and we hear it: He calls us through the Gospel and we follow Jesus. We know enough about Jesus so that we can love Him and trust Him above all things. There are many mysteries about the Lord that we as human beings cannot understand, but He has revealed enough about Himself in His Word that we will not have enough time in a lifetime to know everything that can be known. But we know Him intimately enough to follow Him; we want to think His thoughts, desire His desires, and do His will. To know Jesus is to love Him; to love Him is to follow Him, because He is the Good Shepherd. We know where He is leading us and we trust Him to take care of us all the days of our life. Jesus knows me.