I Know My Sheep

With the Shepherd

Jesus does not describe a distant, managerial kind of knowing here, the way a business might know its customers in aggregate. He describes a knowing modeled on the relationship between himself and the Father, intimate, complete, mutual. And he says that same quality of knowing exists between himself and his sheep. And am known of mine.

This should be startling if you have ever assumed God’s knowledge of you is mostly transactional, tracking your failures and successes from a careful distance. This passage describes something closer and warmer, a shepherd who actually knows each sheep, individually, the way he is known by the Father he loves.

Notice also that this knowing is mutual: known of mine. You are not only known by him. You are invited to actually know him in return, not merely know facts about him, but the kind of relational knowing this whole passage is describing. Most of the Christian life is this slow, ongoing work of coming to actually know the shepherd who already knows you.

Spend today less concerned with managing what he thinks of you and more curious about actually knowing him, the way sheep grow familiar with a shepherd’s particular voice, walk, and care over time spent together.