One of my top ten, all-time, favorite Christian hymns is Do You Know My Jesus? To know Jesus means we have a salvation relationship with Him based on God’s grace. We put our faith in Jesus’s blood flowing from the cross that washes away our sins and we are born again to a new life with Jesus as Savior and Lord when by faith we are baptized into Christ. It means Jesus is our best friend. We tell Him everything. We sense His presence and speak to Him during the day. We rely on Jesus for everything in this life. We hate sin messing with us because it interferes with our spiritually-intimate relationship with Jesus. Lots of bad things could happen to us in this life but as long as we are close to Jesus we are ok. And, everything good that happens to us in this life moves us to gratitude for Jesus acting on our behalf. We want to be closer to Jesus more than anyone or anything in this world. To know Jesus is to experience eternal life with Him. That’s what it means to know Jesus.

I love the statement in John 12 when some people say, “…we wish to see Jesus” (John 12:21). There could be no greater or better desire to express than “I want to see Jesus”. Paul said it this way, “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and he fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:7-11).

Read John 12:20-33. Then listen to precious a cappella singing of Do You Know My Jesus.

John 12:20-33

Now there were some Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast; these people then came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and were making a request of him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip *came and *told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip *came and *told Jesus. But Jesus *answered them by saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. The one who loves his life loses it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

“Now My soul has become troubled; and what am I to say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” So the crowd who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, “An angel has spoken to Him!” Jesus responded and said, “This voice has not come for My sake, but for yours. Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself.” Now He was saying this to indicate what kind of death He was going to die.