Part of our daily routine at home, from a very non-serious perspective, has been watching a morning show called Good Mythical Morning on YouTube. My wife and I have watched two guys, Rhett & Link, do a wide variety of things in the name of entertainment. They have eaten the world’s hottest pepper, the Carolina Reaper, played numerous guessing games based on trends or random facts, goofy physical challenges and a whole gamut of other seemingly random activities. The hosts are our age and grew up about 2-3 hours away from where we went to college, so there are some points of familiarity that drew us toward them from the get go.

Because we have been watching them for so many years, we know the names of their children, wives and plenty of stories about their lives from the time they were in elementary school up until the present. We know about their middle school crushes, pranks they pulled in high school, that they both have engineering degrees, & that Rhett is lactose sensitive. But we don’t know these guys. We’ve never met them, we haven’t seen them in person, and they certainly have no idea who we are…

So do we know them? From a surface perspective, yes. We know a lot about them. But, in reality, we don’t know them at all. Facts and exposure do not equate to a relationship.

Knowledge about them does not translate into a closeness with them.

If we claimed that it did, we would be delusional & it would sound like the beginning of some plot from a stalker movie. (Have you seen/read ‘Misery?’) There’s a line there, based in reality, that exposes the truth about just how well we actually know them. It would be silly/scary to claim otherwise.

The same is true when it comes to calling yourself a Christian. A lot of people know about Jesus. They have been exposed to Him, know parts of His story, have met people who spend time with Him, & so they think they know Him, too. In reality, they don’t really know Him, there is no relationship or any evidence in their life that would point toward their claims to know Him.

Jesus was very pointed about this type of person in His teachings & warned against living this way. It delusional & dangerous. He told us that walking with Him would produce a particular type of fruit/evidence in our life (multiplication of disciples & the ‘fruit’ of the Holy Spirit at work in us) & that the world would know that we belonged to Him based on the love we showed for one another.

He talked about the very real consequence of pretending to know Him & living that lie. In the end, these people will be told, ‘Go away from Me, I never knew you’ and they will meet their eternity with fire. It’s not a pleasant outcome. We must be careful not to deceive ourselves.

Listen to John, someone who walked with Him & personally learned from Him:

“We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭1:1-4‬ ‭NLT

John saw Jesus, touched Him, ate with Him, had an actual relationship with Him. In reality, they were friends. John was His student/disciple and Not only hung on His every word, but was able to put what he learned into practice in a very real space with Him, receiving feedback & gaining a better understanding from the experience. This is reality & relationship.

If we claim to know Jesus, then we had better spend time with Him. It’s not just a mental download of facts, but a real, functioning relationship that grows over time. Jesus promised us closeness through the Holy Spirit & that comes from personal familiarity, time spent and walking in obedience to His call on our lives. Jesus won’t keep us at an arm’s length if we are intentionally pursuing relationship with Him. He is open & ready to receive us, no matter what, & we can have confidence in Him because of that. He wants depth & a quality relationship with us. He wants us to draw near. He will never do anything to inhibit us from knowing Him better, make it too hard to do so along the way.

But it’s always, always a two way street. We must pursue Him as He has pursued us. We must be devoted to Him as He is devoted to us. We must understand the reality of our relationship with Him, being discipled/changed by Him, & know that He is our Lord & Master, not just some friend from school or a celebrity that we have memorized facts about.

If we claim to know Him, then we must truly know Him, spending time with Him, growing in real relationship with Him through prayer, the reading of the Word & putting it into practice under the umbrella of His love & grace. And when we do? Then we can truly live what we truly know. Thank God for grace through faith in Him along the way!

He makes it all possible.