A confession concerning divine knowing and human motive for every believer who fears hearing, “I never knew you.”
To be known by God is to stand before a mirror that reflects not self, but heaven.– AI (Doc Sage) Generated Picture.
Introduction
Perhaps the question is not, “Lord, do You know me?” but “Lord, do I authentically know You?”
Today, the last day of my leave, has been one of those Holy Spirit moments that cuts to the bone. During my reading, Jesus’ words in John 13:18 arrested me:
“I do not speak concerning all of you.”
At first glance, Jesus refers to Judas. Yet the line reverberates through Scripture like an earthquake of discernment: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’…” (Matt. 7:21–23); “Outside are the dogs…” (Rev. 22:15). The same divine pattern resounds through the Old Testament, where God says of Israel, “It was not because you were more righteous than these nations that the Lord brought you in to possess their land, but that they are wicked” (Deut. 9:4–6). As Old Testament scholar Gerhard von Rad observes, divine election in the Hebrew Scriptures reveals not human merit but divine holiness and moral revelation.¹ God’s choice was never flattery but fidelity, He distinguishes not because humanity is good, but because He is holy. Across covenants, God separates those who are merely near from those who are truly known.
The Fear of Being Unknown
I have long carried the quiet dread of standing before God and hearing, “I never knew you.” My heart trembles at the thought that faith might be performance rather than participation. Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre described “bad faith” as the masquerade of sincerity, living as a role rather than a reality.² Erving Goffman saw the same phenomenon in social life: identity as theatre, a continual presentation of self.³ Both diagnosed what the Church calls hypocrisy. Humanity has always risked confusing performance for truth. Gosh, one just has to read of the travesties committed in the name of belief, politics, commerce, and ideology to know that the line between authenticity and delusion is a razor’s edge.
Jesus’ phrase, “I do not speak concerning all of you,” thus exposes the difference between proximity and communion. One can sit at His table, serve in His name, and still remain untransformed. In Greek, the verb οἶδα (oida) means intuitive, relational perception, a knowing that flows from being, not observation.⁴ When Christ says, “I know whom I have chosen,” He speaks from ontological intimacy, not informational awareness.⁵
The Divine Divide
Philosopher Immanuel Kant once wrote that ultimate reality, the noumenal, lies beyond human grasp.⁶ Thomas Nagel later called it “the view from nowhere,” reminding us that we cannot see as God sees.⁷ Scripture affirms this transcendence: God alone surveys time and motive without distortion. His foreknowledge is not determinism but otherness.
Thus, when Jesus foretells betrayal “that the Scripture may be fulfilled,” He reveals a divine vantage point unconfined by creation. God is immanent enough to know, yet transcendent enough to judge. His omniscience neither coerces nor surprises; it simply is.
The Betrayal Within
Reading this, I turned to my own Breakthrough Offering list, twelve sincere requests scrawled in hopeful ink: to visit Israel where Jesus walked and the USA to visit Tribity whom I study through, financial growth, to own my own home, preaching opportunities, and more. I suddenly saw Judas in my margins. Where, exactly, did desire end and discipleship begin?
Modern psychology names the tension. Leon Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Theory shows our ability to hold conflicting beliefs.⁸ Jonathan Haidt observes that moral reasoning often justifies our emotional intuition rather than corrects it.⁹ Sigmund Freud argued that repression frequently dresses self-interest as virtue.¹⁰ The Bible names this the divided heart.
Psychology and theology, strange bedfellows though they are, converge here: the mind rationalises what the soul refuses to surrender.
The God Who Washes Betrayers’ Feet
Yet John does not stop at exposure. Before announcing betrayal, Jesus kneels to wash Judas’ feet (John 13:4–17). Omniscience kneels. The One who foreknew treachery still held the heel that would bruise Him.
Anthropologist René Girard would call this the collapse of the scapegoat mechanism: love absorbing violence instead of returning it.¹¹ Hans Urs von Balthasar saw in such humility the very definition of divine beauty: kenosis, self-emptying love.¹² God’s knowledge is never detached; it stoops. To be fully known is not to be condemned but invited to cleansing.
The Mirror of Motive
I revisited my prayer list. The Spirit translated every request from gain to growth:
“Growth in finances” became growth in contentment. “Missionary?” became freedom from counterfeit comfort. “Preaching opportunities” became speak when surrendered.
In that mirror, I saw not a wishlist but a syllabus of sanctification.
Philosopher Charles Taylor warns that modern authenticity often severs itself from transcendence.¹³ Michel Foucault describes modern spirituality as self-surveillance, confession without repentance.¹⁴ Zygmunt Bauman notes that in “liquid modernity,” identity and even faith become consumable products.¹⁵ The Spirit counters this liquidity with solidity: surrender.
The Refining Flame
The revelation wounded before it healed. “He cracked me like a Christmas nut,” I wrote in my journal. Hebrews says, “The word of God is living and active… discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). Divine knowing is surgical: incision before restoration.
Søren Kierkegaard called purity of heart “to will one thing.”¹⁶ Carl Jung saw wholeness as integrating the shadow into the light.¹⁷ Scripture calls it sanctification. To be known by God is to have one’s shadow baptised in God’s light.
The Apostolic Consequence
Jesus ends this passage with commission: “He who receives whomever I send receives Me” (John 13:20), a statement that looks ahead to the Spirit’s sending and to all who are authentically guided by the Spirit of Truth. Authentic knowing inevitably becomes credible witness.
Theologian Lesslie Newbigin insisted that the Church is meant to be “sign, foretaste, and instrument” of the Kingdom.¹⁸ Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre warned that when practice detaches from narrative, virtue collapses.¹⁹ When the Church’s performance eclipses her participation, she ceases to be credible to the world she is sent to love.
The Terrifying Mercy of Being Known
At last, I looked again at my list, creased, tear-stained, still unsigned by heaven. But now it felt different. It was no longer a transaction; it was an altar.
The terrifying mercy of God is that He knows us enough to expose us, yet loves us enough not to leave us exposed. C. S. Lewis wrote that God’s love is a consuming fire, burning away all that cannot belong to eternity.²⁰
So I prayed, “Search me again, Lord. Know me as You choose me. May my knowing You outgrow my wanting from You.”
Practical Application: Living Known, Not Performed
Knowing Christ authentically demands unlearning the instinct to perform. The Church does not need more impressive Christians but more transparent ones, disciples who let grace expose their motives before it empowers their mission. To live “known” means practising spiritual honesty in the ordinary: confessing the real reason behind our prayers, surrendering our hidden ambitions, and inviting the Holy Spirit to transform appetite into obedience.
This week, before you ask God for anything, pause to ask Him why you want it. Lay each desire on the table of truth and ask:
“Lord, what part of me are You forming through this request?”
Authentic knowing begins when we let God revise our motives rather than rubber-stamp them. As we yield to the Spirit of Truth, our faith stops performing and starts participating, our lists become liturgies, our petitions become postures, and our breakthroughs become altars.
Prayer
Lord,
You who know all things and still choose to love. Search me again. Strip the disguises I no longer notice. Rescue me from the ease of performance and the fear of exposure. Teach me to measure success not by what I achieve for You, but by what You accomplish in me.
When I speak of faith, let it sound like surrender.
When I ask for blessing, let it be only to bless others.
When I write my petitions, let Your Spirit edit my motives.
May I live as one fully known, yet unashamed, walking in the quiet boldness of a heart held open before You.
In the Holy Name of Jesus Christ, who washed even the feet of betrayal,
Amen.
TRACK TO ENJOY:
Bibliography
1. Deuteronomy 9:4–6; Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 263–64. Von Rad notes that election in the Old Testament reveals God’s holiness rather than human worthiness.
2. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956), 59.
3. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Anchor Books, 1959), 17.
4. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 580–81.
5. Ibid., 582.
6. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), B306.
7. Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 3.
8. Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1957), 1–3.
9. Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 36–38.
10. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, trans. James Strachey (New York: Norton, 1961), 45.
11. René Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 171.
12. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Love Alone Is Credible (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2004), 72.
13. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 473.
14. Michel Foucault, The Care of the Self, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage, 1988), 47–49.
15. Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity, 2000), 8–9.
16. Søren Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing, trans. Douglas V. Steere (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1948), 20.
17. Carl Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 22–23.
18. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 122.
19. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 216.
20. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1940), 83.
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