Known by God

Meditations in First Corinthians

June 14, 2022

Known by God 

All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

1 Corinthians 13:12b

Read: 1 Corinthians 13:8-13

Jane and Maura, from the TV show Rizzoli & Isles, are talking. Maura is trying, in a very convoluted way, to express her feelings about something. Jane responds, “It must be very difficult to be you.” Maura replies, “You have no idea!” I can so identify with Maura’s comment. I know I am a child of God, and that Christ is in me, and I am in him. I also realize that I am the totality of all that has been my life for seventy-five years. Much of that life has been so very good. Significant portions have been so very bad. Daily I get to choose to live my life out of my core identity that I know is a beloved child of God. Often there are competing voices vying for attention, and sometimes they win out.

Which is all to say, some of the sweetest words to me in the Bible are in verse 12: “Just as God now knows me completely.” There are many days when the attributes we looked at yesterday in verses 4-7 hardly seem present in my life, and I am most acutely aware of how much more in me needs to be transformed to become like Christ. Even so, my Heavenly Father wraps His arms around me and says, “Dear one, you are mine and I love you.” My Heavenly Father knows and loves me. He made me. He knows what it is like for me to be me. I rest in the sweet affection of His smile toward me.

By the way, if we are inclined to have some deep and meaningful private devotional time, like our own personal daily retreat, we would do well to spend a week with chapter 13. We can meditate on just two verses each day. We can read, mediate, and reflect on those two verses three times each day: morning, noon, and evening. We would do well.

My Takeaway: Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. (v. 13) I want the entire focus of my life to be on that which is eternal; faith, hope and love.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2022 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.