If You Know, You Know

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. 

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.

Jesus, we belong to you. 

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. 

John 14:6–7

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

CONSIDER THIS

I play a little game with my adult children. When I see a new internet acronym (acronyms like LOL, meaning “laugh out loud,” or IMHO, meaning “in my humble opinion”), I attempt to guess what it means. If I can’t figure it out immediately, I make things up that I think are funnier than the original. They cringe at my sense of humor, but I know deep down they think I should have my own stand-up comedy act. However, occasionally, I’m stumped.

A few years ago, this happened with IYKYK. If you don’t already know what it means, IYKYK stands for “If you know, you know.” In context, it is used to express that if you understand the image you are looking at, then you are part of a special crowd of people who have the unique background to understand that image (i.e., “If you know, you know”). The inference is that if you don’t know what the image means, you’re not part of their little in-crowd at that moment.

Jesus has his own version of IYKYK, but it means something very different. It is captured in John 14:6–7.

In today’s passage, Jesus begins by declaring that he is the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life given to humankind. He is the Way we know the Father, the Truth that guides us to the Father, and the Life that is found in the Father. 

It is a radical statement, and it is why Christians were called followers of “the Way” in the earliest days (see Acts 9). He says that he is the Way to know the Father—and there is no other Way. Then Jesus follows this up with his version of an IYKYK statement: “If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him” (John 14:7).

He is saying, “If you know me, you know the Father.” IYKYK.

When someone asks you to describe your version of God to them, how many of us fumble to say the right thing hoping we don’t blow the opportunity? What if we immediately began to describe all the qualities of Jesus? As the “radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Heb. 1:3a), if you describe the character traits of Jesus, you describe the Father.

I was once asked to describe my version of God by a man I had just met. Thankfully, I described the qualities of Jesus. At the end of the conversation, he told me he couldn’t deny that he liked the sound of that God. When I told him I was describing Jesus, and then explained the Trinity, he smiled and said he would rethink his thoughts about God.

IFKYK. If you know Jesus, you know the Father.

Now, what if people in your sphere of relationships began to text this acronym to one another: IYK[insert the first initial of your name]YKJ (i.e., If you know [insert your name], you know Jesus)? It may seem a bit beyond us right now, but according to 1 John 4:17, we are like him in this world. 

With Jesus in you, the Father and all his love is in you. They have made their habitation in you (John 14:23). May people think of you when they think of Jesus. And when they think of Jesus in you, may they think that maybe they are beginning to see “all the fullness” (Eph. 3:19) of what God must be like.

THE PRAYER 

Lord Jesus, I am in you and you are in me. I want to know you as I am known by you. I want to know the Father as I am known by the Father. I want to know the Spirit, as I am known by the Spirit. Let people who know me, Jesus, see you in me today. In Christ Jesus, I pray, amen.

THE QUESTIONS

Could you imagine your life becoming a reflection of the life of Jesus to this degree? What would it mean for you to allow his presence to shine through you ever more brightly as you age and mature in faith? How can you nurture that future, where people who meet you feel as though they have met Jesus?

For the Awakening,
Dan Wilt 

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