Ginosko

(Continued from Part 1, yesterday)

Here is something to consider, as you listen in to understand God’s thoughts and emotions on this matter. Is it enough for you to know in your head that God loves you, if that knowledge never reaches your heart? I looked back at some of my teenage journal entries recently. They are overflowing with prayers, longings, even begging God to know His love beyond my head and into my heart. Head knowledge never satisfied anyone. Each of us can profoundly, sometimes achingly identify with the lyric,

“I want to know what love is, I want you to show me
I want to feel what love is, I know you can show me…
Show me love is real, yeah, I want to know what love is”
– Foreigner

To know love. To feel love. To experience love. To drink of it exquisitely, to be consumed by it. To know that it is REAL. You and I and every human being on the planet long for that. Guess what? He does too. You were created in His image. That yearning in your heart directly reflects the Original Edition and His own longings. He made you just like Him. So you would long for Him too.

Even the words, “I love You,” out of our lips do not satisfy His burning desire, if He has not yet actually experienced our love. Listen to His heart when He expresses,

“These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Matt. 15:8, NKJV).

Can you hear the pain in His voice?

And again, “Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me…’” (Matt. 7:23, NKJV).

How will Jesus be able say that He never knew someone, when they stand before Him at the end of their life – if He knows everything and everyone? Here too, He is talking about experiential knowledge. This is the deeply personal knowing that comes through intimacy. The verb in Matthew 7:23 that is translated “knew” is the Greek ginosko. It means “to know…through personal experience”. The Lord will tell these people, “I never walked intimately with you. I was never allowed to experientially know your devotion. I never got to drink in heart knowledge of your love. You decided not to be Mine.”

Abraham gave Him the opposite. Abraham fulfilled the deepest longings of Daddy God. In this son’s ultimate act of devotion, God tasted a love that infinitely surpassed anything that He simply knew via foreknowledge.

It’s time to listen to these words again, with your deepest soul: “Now I really, really know! You have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me! Oh Abraham, how exquisite is your adoration! How it conquers My heart! How it causes My inner being to bubble up and spill over profusely with joy and pleasure! You have ravished Me with your worship!”

X-ray vision doesn’t cut it, folks. Daddy God craves our passionate love.

This is what the testing is for. It’s not about measuring progress or gathering data or awarding brownie points. God longs to know you the way He came to know Abraham. He is ablaze with desire to ginosko you. Holy Spirit is inviting you to understand — when He asks for your own personal Isaac, it’s not because He’s mean and demanding. On the contrary – He is achingly yearning for you. He wants to take His relationship with you so much deeper. He wants to experience for Himself, to the very depths of His burning soul, how much you love Him. He wants to live out love with you.

Close your eyes and lean in. Listen — He is singing to you: “I want to know what love is, I want you to show Me…”

Daddy God, You craved Abraham’s tangible love, and he gave You the experience You longed for. He conquered Your heart in actuality and became Your friend permanently. You yearn for my love, my fiery affection, my fierce devotion too. You desire to be my most intense passion, to be the One that I love the most. You are inviting me to let You feel the deepest depths of human love possible. I want to give You this experience too. I want to give You what You long for. I want to fulfill Your yearnings. Take me! Take all that I am! Take all that I long for, and make me wholly and completely Yours!

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Does God’s longing for us create any vulnerability in Him? Can He be hurt?