DAY 44 – THE SECRET OF BEING KNOWN
Many will claim to know God and in the judgment day and God will say to some; ‘I don’t know you but the most important question to be asked in this situation should be “what must I do to be known by God?” The answer lies with your secret life with God. He wants you to enter the secret place and sit before him taking off all mask of pretence and laying your heart before Him. He wants to see the real you. He wants a relationship with you that is based on total transparency and honesty. Allow God to see your brokeness and carnality.
It is true that God knows everything about us. But just because God sees some dark rooms in our hearts does not mean that we have invited His light into those dark rooms to illuminate them… As humans, we have the tendency to hide and cover up. If we try to hide out true condition from him, not only are we deceiving ourselves but we are also restricting God from fully knowing us. When God says He knows us, it means we have invited Him into our thoughts, motives, actions and desires. When we invite Him in, He will empower us with the grace to overcome our sinful nature. Judas Iscariot serves as a compelling example of a man who was incredibly close to Jesus but yet didn’t allow Jesus into the secrets of his heart. He had a major problem with stealing, but He refused to confess it and bring it into the light. Jesus gave him multiple opportunities over a three-year period to open up, but Judas repeatedly chose to hide. Eventually Satan was able to reach into that stronghold in Judas’s life and yank him to his destruction. Judas illustrates the terrifying truth that it’s possible to spend lots of time in the presence of Jesus and still not be known by Him.
The secret place is not a place for secrets. It’s the place for total honesty and full disclosure. When we reveal our struggles, He releases the grace to help us change. When we confess our struggles to Him, He lavishes us with acceptance and ownership. The greatest intimacy is found in the mutual giving of ourselves radically to each other. The cross demonstrates how radically He gives Himself to you, and your embracing of the cross is you giving yourself back to Him with lavish abandonment. Not only are you honest with Him; you search for ways to give even more of your heart to Him and the most compelling thing about submitting yourself to Christ leadership is that, Christ will never misunderstand you. He is able to address the issue of your heart with total accuracy and understanding (1 Corinthians 8:3) “But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him.” When we open our hearts to Him in loving abandonment,
He embraces us and knows us.
What a joyful privilege to have a knowing relationship with GodAlmighty!
