He Knows Us, Do We Know Him?

On my mission, I taught a young couple who doubted the idea of the pre-mortal existence. As evidence, they cited Matthew 7: 21-23:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

They argued, how could Jesus say He "never knew" people if He had lived with them in the pre-mortal world?

The answer, as Elder David A. Bednar explained in his talk, "'If Ye Had Known Me,'"is in the footnotes. A footnote in Matthew 7: 23 shows us a Joseph Smith Translation, which changes "I never knew you" to "Ye never knew me."

Still, how could this be possible? We spent at least some time, possibly an eternity, with Him before we were born. How is it possible for anyone to not know Jesus Christ?

Unfortunately, though meeting Jesus Christ and knowing of Him are both virtually inevitable, actually knowing Him isn't.  There's a big difference between knowing about Jesus and getting to know Him. It's easy to know of and about Jesus. It takes much more effort to get to know Him.

All Christians know of Jesus Christ, and Christian or not, we all met Him in the pre-mortal world. But not everyone has developed a personal relationship with Him. Not everyone has learned enough about Him to know his attributes and learn why He does what He does.

Yet, He has taken the time to get to know each of us. He knows who we are, and not just in the sense that He knows our names and faces. He knows what we're like. He knows our attributes. He knows why we do what we do. He has a deep, personal relationship with each of us. The only question is if we have that sort of relationship with Him.

Over the course of his talk, Elder Bednar teaches us how we can improve our relationship with Jesus Christ, and if you feel like your relationship with Him could be strengthened, I recommend checking it out. Getting to know Jesus Christ is one of the most important purposes of life, so it makes sense to take the effort to do so. We met Him before we were born, and even if reading this blog post was the first time you've heard His name, we have all now at least heard of Jesus Christ, but that's not enough. We all know of Jesus, but it's important to get to know Him as well as He has gotten to know us.