“Familiarity breeds contempt.” We have all experienced this with a person, a place, or a job. You started a job with high hopes and great energy. You thoroughly enjoyed the people you worked with and looked forward to arriving every day. But after years of the same old same old, your attitude has changed from high regard to benign neglect to contempt and scorn. This happens with people too. Unfortunately, this happens most often with those closest to us. The closer we get to another person, the more clearly we see their faults. We usually don’t mean to, but instead of accepting those faults, they become magnified in our minds and that day-to-day familiarity devolves into contempt.

God does not regard us with the contempt of familiarity, but with grace and truth. Aren’t you glad?

In the story of Jesus calling His first disciples, he demonstrates a penetrating knowledge of both Peter and Nathanael. 

Without warning, Jesus gives Simon a new name. How unnerving that must have been. First, for Simon, he had no say in the matter. The authority and audacity of Jesus to change his name on the spot must have been alarming. Second, he was given a name he didn’t deserve and which didn’t match his character. He was not a rock of a man. He was much less than trustworthy. He knew it, and certainly, Jesus knew it. Yet Jesus changed Simon to Peter based on what he would become, not based on what he was. Jesus was demonstrating grace to Peter. He was also speaking the truth about what kind of man he would become by His association with the Messiah.

With Nathanael, Jesus demonstrates the same penetrating knowledge. When Jesus first spoke to Nathanael that he was an Israelite with no deceit, he was amazed and said to Jesus, “How do you know me?” Jesus said to the reluctant Nathanael, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” We don’t know the subject and content of this divine knowledge Jesus was speaking of, but we do know that this revelation changed Nathanael’s mind about Jesus. In fact, it changed his life. He confessed Him right there as the Son of God. Why? Because Jesus knew him. He knew all of him, and Nathanael knew it.

God knows everything about you and loves you anyway. Aren’t you glad?

Like Peter and Nathanael, he has a penetrating knowledge of each of us. His knowledge of us is not murky and dubious, like a “psychic” on a hotline, or a “mind reader” at a High School assembly. Jesus knows everything about us with absolute clarity. He is Creator. He is Lord. All things were made by Him, and through Him, and for Him—including you. He knows the day of your birth, the day of your death, and everything in between. He knows the innermost secrets of your heart—all you’ve done, all you’ve thought, all you’ve desired or despaired. And he still loves you. This is grace and truth. Should we not emulate our Lord in our relationships with one another—with grace and truth?

God does not regard us with the contempt of familiarity, but with grace and truth. Aren’t you glad?