Many of us don’t get the way that Jesus gets us

Jesus gets us.

That’s the slogan of an ad campaign and corresponding website.

That’s certainly true in the sense that He truly and fully understands us. God, after all, has all understanding of everything, since He created and sustains everything.

But when people use that phrase today, that somebody “gets” you, does it mean mere understanding? I get the impression that it also means affirmation. When someone “gets” you, it’s not just that they have an understanding of you; they affirm your understanding of you. They affirm you, with no judgment.

Is that how Jesus gets us?

Jesus goes far beyond our understanding of us. He understands far more about us than we do. He knows us better than we know ourselves. So in that sense, yes, He gets us, like no one else does, not even ourselves.

But His understanding is not affirmation, because Jesus gets what we don’t get. Jesus gets what we don’t want to get.

Jesus can see right into the human heart, and here’s what He sees:

“But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man …” (Matthew 15:18-20).

“The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
I, the LORD, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.”

Jeremiah 17:9-10

In John 2, many people “believed” in Jesus because of His miracles. But look at how He saw them:

But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man. (John 2:24-25)

Jesus knows the real you.

There’s a lyric in “Christian music” that expresses that sentiment: “God only knows the real you.”

That’s true, of course, but that song doesn’t quite get across the implications of this.

The you God knows is worse than the you they know (or you know).

God knows the you that you don’t want them to know.

God knows the sins they don’t know.

God knows the thoughts they don’t know. He discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).

The me God only knows makes me shudder!

What God only knows makes me run to Jesus for mercy and salvation. Certainly not for affirmation.

Yes, Jesus gets us. But do we get Him?