Knowing Christ

"I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of know-ing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ."
Philippians 3:8

    I love this passage because Paul is putting our relationship with Christ in-to its proper perspective. You may have accomplished some wonderful things in your life, yet, when you put them on the scale and balance them against the value of knowing Christ there is no comparison. The Message is even more graphic, it uses the term "dog dung" in place of "rubbish".

    Some of you may have been attending church for years, hearing the teachings of the Bible, learning about God, but you may not really KNOW Him. There is a big difference between knowing facts about a person and re-ally "knowing" him. If you were to ask me if I know the President of the United States, I would have to reply, "I know about him, but I have never met him personally or engaged in conversation with him, so I can't really say I know him.” Paul knew about Jesus, but he did not really "know" Him until he met him on the road to Damascus.

    When the Bible uses the word "know" it often is describing a close per-sonal relationship. Sometimes it is used to describe the most intimate physi-cal relationship possible. In Genesis we read, "Adam KNEW Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bore Cain." Jesus said "I am the good shepherd, and KNOW my sheep, and am known of mine...My sheep hear my voice and I KNOW them, and they follow me." Do you know Jesus so well that you can recognize His voice when He speaks to you and then follow Him?

    In John 17:3 Jesus says, "This is life eternal, that they might KNOW You the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." When most peo-ple think of eternal life they think of living forever. But Jesus adds another dimension – an even more important one. He says nothing about the quanti-ty of eternal life here, but rather describes its quality. As human beings we need more than mere longevity of life. A worm is content to live in soil. But we, who were created in the image of God, need more than physical life in order to be fulfilled. Our fulfillment comes from KNOWING Christ and His Fa-ther and ours. This, says Jesus, is eternal life. Not only is it endless, but we don't need to wait for the resurrection in order to experience it. It starts right now!

    Have you ever been in love? People who are in love want nothing more than to spend time with each other. They can't wait to hear their lover's voice on the telephone (or nowadays, reading her next text message). The point is, they love spending time with each other and getting to know each other better. This is how it should be for us Christians. Our ultimate desire, the reason we come to church on Sunday, should be to know our Lord more intimately.

    We can do this the same way lovers do – by spending time with each other. This can be achieved in many ways - reading God's Word, prayer, meditation, worship, and spending time with godly people.

D. Thorfeldt  ©CDMI