You May Know, But, Do You really Know?

[HKHaugan]

Parables and Their Meaning

You May Know, But, Do You Really Know? 

Two vacation events awhile back got me to thinking about the difference between religion and relationship and how they are so completely different.  One was a discussion in a men’s group about Joseph and Mary’s relationship based on Matthew 1:25. The other was with a young plumber’s assistant who came to fix a leak in the place we were renting and proceeded to try and convert me to be a Jehovah’s witness.  The first was a heart to heart discussion and sharing about personal issues which ended with prayer.  The second was a heartless canned format I discerned as manipulative and insensitive.  He didn’t want to know me.  He only wanted another face to justify his own inadequacy. 

The leak was fixed but religion produced an icy ending blocking a heart to heart meeting.  I’ve had similar experiences with Mormons.  The comparison of the two got me to thinking about the main issue to which they pointed---intimacy.  When real personal sharing takes place that is the expression of intimacy.  It’s no longer about joining something.  It’s about a heart finding its source and freeing someone to feel life as the Lord intended. 

In the men’s group discussion, reference was made to Joseph not ‘knowing’ Mary until after the birth of Jesus.  ‘Knowing’ in that context is physical intimacy expressing male-female intimacy in marriage.  But that intimacy is more than just physical.  It’s an inner ‘knowing,’ a ‘heart knowing.’  It’s what’s behind the physical that is being expressed.  It’s God’s love lived in an ongoing relationship. That’s what opened up a lot of heart experiences in the group.  It was the heart ‘knowing’ that accompanied the ‘physical’ knowing.  That struck a chord in those men. Before Jesus was born, Joseph was motivated to be her cover, her protector (Mt.1:19-21).  He really didn’t know Mary more personally until after the birth of Jesus.  But isn’t that true of all of us.  We don’t really know our wives or husbands until we start living together. 

Take our relationship with God.  We can read about Jesus in the Bible.  We can believe a lot about Him. We can even join a church.  That’s a physical action.  But does that mean we ‘know’ Him?  It takes His birth in our hearts to make that happen.  Perhaps this is another reason for the Virgin Birth.  You can’t really know Him until you have opened your heart to Him.  You have to be born spiritually.  Mary got it right when told she would conceive Jesus.  She made the choice to accept that, “I am the Lord’s servant, may it be to me as you have said (Luke 1:38).” You don’t really consummate a relationship until there is a step in faith, a spiritual sharing between persons, a commitment to a relationship.  It’s more than a casual handshake and brief conversation.  Wasn’t Jesus’ calling to the disciples a calling to intimacy with Him and learning spiritual intimacy with each other through Him? 

Take language for instance.  There’s a parallel here.  In German, one knows the language either intimately or academically, ‘Konnen Sie Deutsch?’ (academic knowing), or ‘Kennen Sie Deutsch? (personal knowing).  In Norwegian, ‘Jeg tror Norsk’ (personal) or ‘Jeg vet Norsk’ (academic).  I know a few words and expressions in each of those but I’m not fluent in either.  I don’t really ‘know’ those languages.  In language the intimacy issue is fluency.  You speak with a ‘feel’ for the language, recognizing its dialects, its symbolisms and idioms.  If we pursue that thought you might even ask if we are relationally fluent, emotionally fluent.  Are we perceptive, insightful and sensitive, open to being personal?  In other words, up-front and honest in all we say and do.  Jesus certainly was.  A relationship with Jesus gives us a ‘feel’ for what it means to be a relational human being, an image of God among other images of God.  This is what drew ordinary people to Him and scared those in authority.  

When Jesus taught, people could really say they were touched in the heart, “He’s speaking my language.”  At Pentecost people heard the Apostles speaking their languages.  Isn’t it the words of the Gospel that speak a common language to the hearts of people all over?  Isn’t that how faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word (Rom.10:17), the Holy Spirit being the heart translator?  Jesus’ mission---restore intimacy with God in every heart.  The parables of Jesus move us in that direction.

In other words, intimacy begins when we accept Jesus and He gives us the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of intimacy (Jn.3:5).

Our primary example of perfect intimacy is the Holy Trinity---Father, Son and Holy Spirit, separate persons, but totally at One.  It was when we received Jesus, that we began our trek into intimacy.  He prayed this to the Father for us, “I in them and you in me (Jn.17:23).”

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water (Jn.4;10).”  As we relate to Jesus through the Holy Spirit we find ourselves being bonded to Him through His Word.   It is not how much of the Word we get but how much we let the Spirit of intimacy touch us as we read it.  "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things (Philippians 3:8).”  “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews …true worshipers worship in Spirit and in truth…the Father seeks such to worship Him (Jn.4:22-24).”

There is the shared heart, mind and spirit experience, the unseen realities that make us the created images of God we are.

Intimacy is opening these three internal parts of our God image, first to God then to others. 

Intimacy is allowing someone into our mind, heart and spirit because that was what Jesus did.  Intimacy is humility exercised.  Intimacy with Jesus is when you don’t have to win an argument.  There is a difference between sharing and winning. 

When you see Jesus in Scripture what you see is what you get.  It starts with the mind, moves in trust to the heart and then acts intimacy out in faith.  This is the road to maturity which is a developing intimacy.  The human Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature with God and man.”  David knew this: Ps.26:2 “Test me O Lord and try me, examine my heart and my mind, for your love is ever before me and I walk continually in your truth.”  This is the only test you will ever take and never fail.