“THAT I MAY KNOW HIM”!
There’s an interesting study found in 1 Corinthians 13:11-13 when Paul said: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
And, I have to ask: “Is that a picture of limited awareness of who Paul was and what he pre-maturely understood about his ‘oneness with Christ Jesus, the Savior and Lord of all mankind’?”
I see a vast difference, a more mature understanding, between what 1 Corinthians 13:11-13 tells us and what Paul revealed and unveiled to the church at Ephesus, and us, in Ephesians 1:3-12, when he wrote: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, BY WHICH HE HAS MADE US ‘accepted in the Beloved.’
IN HIM we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.”
As I read the Ephesians’ passage, I was reminded of what H. Richard Niebuhr once said in a strong profound statement: “The great Christian revolutions come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when somebody takes radically something that was always there.”
Oh, but then greater illumination, even greater passionate desire erupts, when in Philippians 3:10-11 the Apostle says, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
I’m sure you are aware of a lot of the ‘spiritual climates’ around you, or a lack of them, but for sure you are sadly aware of, in some, a dire deprivation of human existence and a longing for something, Someone, some way different from what they’ve walked in – and there is in, yes, even you, maybe a ‘cry’, a ‘longing’ for a change!
There are several vital truths we must evaluate and search out as we, yes, examine ourselves as to whether or not we have truly come into the eternal relationship with Christ, our Lord, our Savior, and the Master of our lives!
FIRST, IS THERE IN YOU AND ME THE PASSIONATE, NEVER WANING DESIRE, TO KNOW HIM? It was Paul W. Harrison who once said, “Wherever God rules over the human heart as King, there is the kingdom of God established.” But far too many ‘professing’ believers fail to have a full, freeing, mature understanding of their ‘oneness’ with and in Christ and His Kingly rule!! More sad is the reality of blindness to an unawareness of the eternal truth of “CHRIST IN YOU the hope of glory.” Even deeper in the depth of sadness is the lack of passionate, never waning desire, TO KNOW HIM!
What did Paul say in Philippians 3:10-11? “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
Modern-day belief systems in the minds of some ‘professing’ Christians is a nominal ‘religious awareness of Jesus’ but a stronger ‘belief system’ that has as its foundation “self-sufficiency”, “self-religious rules on my terms,” with no sure awareness of their spiritual destitution, even though they assert vows and personal resolutions, never knowing Jesus “breathing His resurrection Life into them”!
I was reading in the Psalms recently and came to Psalm 141 where David prayed a prayer for his safe-keeping , fully aware of the “snares they have laid for me, and from the traps of the workers of iniquity,” Verse 9, but then in Verse 10 he prayed, “Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I escape safely.”
And my passionate, never-waning desire, is for ‘believers’ to “Know Him” and to “escape safely” in His Resurrection Life! In Ephesians 3:14-19 Paul prayed for believers in his day and even for believers in our ‘day of the Lord’ today: “For this reason (and I have to pause and ask, ‘What reason?’ And Paul told us in Verses 11-12, “according to the eternal purpose which He (God) accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we (repentant, faith-trusting, ‘redeemed by the blood believers’) have boldness and access with confidence THROUGH FAITH IN HIM (Christ’s finished work at the Cross and His Victorious, Resurrected, Reigning Life!).”
Paul then tells us in Ephesians 3:14-19, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, THAT CHRIST MAY DWELL IN YOUR HEARTS THROUGH FAITH; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge; that YOU may be filled with all the fullness of God.” THAT, TO ME, SOUNDS LIKE PASSIONATE, NEVER-WANING DESIRE TO KNOW CHRIST, like Paul saying to the church at Rome then and us now in Romans 15:29, “But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.”
Then, in 2 Corinthians 7:1, Paul wrote: “Therefore, HAVING THESE PROMISES, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit (of the old, fallen man!), perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
In Oswald Chambers’ book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.56), he wrote about this passionate, never-waning desire to KNOW CHRIST: “I have to cleanse myself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit until both are in accord with the nature of God. Is the mind of my spirit in perfect agreement with the life of the Son of God in me, or am I insubordinate in intellect? Am I forming the mind of Christ, Who never spoke from His right to Himself, but maintained an inner watchfulness whereby He continually submitted His spirit to His Father?” And, of course, I have to ask: ‘Are you continually submitting YOURSELF to His indwelling presence as He desires, seeks, and encourages your yieldedness to His holy Presence?’ This leads us to:
SECOND, THE PASSIONATE, NEVER-WANING DESIRE TO KNOW AND LIVE BY THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION! That’s the second strong step of ascendency into the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ! “That I may know Him AND the power of His resurrection…”!
But then there is, for some, in Luke 24:25-26 “the foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?”, with Luke adding in Verse 27, And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He (Christ Jesus) expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself!
In reading Isaiah 52:13-15, there is the prophetic picture of, not only our Lord’s crucifixion as our “Sin-bearing Servant”, but of His “Resurrection Presence” STILL sprinkling many nations! God spoke: “Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men; (BUT!) So shall He sprinkle many nations (after His Resurrection!). Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider (or understand, comprehend, and want to extend His ‘Resurrection Presence”!).”
And what does Peter enlighten our minds and hearts with, in 2 Peter 1:1b-4? “To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power HAS GIVEN TO US ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN TO LIFE AND GODLINESS, THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM WHO CALLED US BY GLORY AND VIRTUE, by which HAVE BEEN GIVEN TO US EXCEEDINGLY GREAT AND PRECIOUS PROMISES, that through these YOU may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
“The power of His Resurrection” is not one’s inclination apart from appropriation, or one’s thoughts without sovereign transformation, or argumentation apart from God’s acceptance, or our ‘theories apart from His Truth’, or even our ‘thirst’ but no desire for “Living Water”!
In Galatians 3:1-3 and Verse 9 Paul instructs, questions, challenges those who ‘drifted’ to an attitude of ‘religious, self-justification’ apart from Resurrection Presence and His All-Sufficient Power! “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you THAT YOU SHOULD NOT OBEY THE TRUTH, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Verse 9, So then those who are of (obedience to the) faith are blessed with believing Abraham.” [Remember, Jesus said in John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”].
THIRD, NOTICE ALSO THE NEED, THE NEVER WANING DESIRE, IF NECESSARY, OF “THE FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERINGS, BEING CONFORMED TO HIS DEATH”! Have you ever considered, wrestled with, settled into either ‘ the central citadel of obstinacy’ or “the redeemed, regenerated life of Holy Presence”, yes, yielded even to YOUR cross DAILY?
In 2 Corinthians 1:9 Paul wrote, “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead,” in fact saying, in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I DIE DAILY.” Consider even Christ, our Lord, in the Garden of Gethsemane, as in Matthew 26:38-39,42, Jesus PRAYED the following after telling His disciples, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me,” then turned to Father-God praying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will,” crying out to God again in Verse 42, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.”
Are YOU willing, if necessary, to share in “the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death”? Dare I tell you that every true disciple of Christ will face, at times, the agony of his/her own Gethsemane IF you live to honor Him daily whenever, wherever, by whomever, because of your passionate desire to unashamedly honor Him in your walk through life?
“The fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death?” I know it’s not a ‘pleasurable thought’ but it IS a sovereign reality – like Jesus, suffering and conformed to His death, is the eternal birthing, eternal will, and eternal blessing of the consciousness of divine presence! Didn’t Paul say in Romans 8:29, “For whom He [God} foreknew, He also PREDESTINED to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He (Jesus) might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
I haven’t read yet Clark Whitten’s book entitled “Pure Grace,” but I intend to – for the moment, Romans 6:5-11, will be our “enlightening rod” of learning and embracing the “pure grace” of God’s intent of our identity “in Christ”! It says: “For IF we have been united together in the LIKENESS OF HIS DEATH, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His RESURRECTION, KNOWING THIS, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died (with Christ) HAS BEEN FREED FROM SIN. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. LIKEWISE you also, reckon yourselves dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
But then, in Verse 12, Paul lays out the Biblical command that is not a “take it or leave it” preference! He said: “Therefore DO NOT LET SIN REIGN IN YOUR MORTAL BODY, that YOU should obey it in its lusts.” Obedient lives to the old sin nature, though professing faith to life in Christ, is a spiritual ‘oxymoron’, or especially, a total biblical contradiction of one’s professed “oneness with and in Christ”! In his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” by Oswald Chambers, (p.74), he wrote wisely and informatively to all believers today: “When I have made the moral decision about sin, it is easy to reckon actually that I am dead unto sin, because I find the life of Jesus there all the time. Just as there is only one stamp of humanity, so there is only one stamp of holiness, the holiness of Jesus, and it is His holiness that is gifted to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new order spiritually.” Are YOU a part of “the family of God”?
FOURTH, THERE IS THE NEED OF CONSTANT REMINDER , AND SOMETIMES, THE RUDE AWAKENING OF OUR LIFE OF FAITH HIDDEN PROTECTIVELY IN THE VERY LIFE OF CHRIST! In Colossians 3:1-4 Paul trains us: “IF THEN you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. SET YOUR MIND ON THINGS ABOVE, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”
And, my next statement may cause an eruption, but I don’t think that Paul was saying in the after-life we’ll come into Christ’s fullness, but that as one, daily, takes that sentence of death to himself/herself, THEN there is the fullness of release of His glory-cloud manifested in us and through us!
Do you think the old Italian Hymn entitled “Come, Thou Almighty King” applies to you and me each and every single day prior to our presence with Him in Heaven. It says: “Come, Thou Almighty King, Help us Your name to sing, Help us to praise: Father, all glorious, Over all victorius, Come, and reign over us, Ancient of Days.
Come, Thou Incarnate Word, Gird on Your mighty sword, Our prayer attend: Come, and Your people bless, And give Your word success: Spirit of holiness, On us descend.
Come, Holy Comforter, Your sacred witness bear In this glad hour: You who almighty art, Now rule in every heart, And never from us depart, Spirit of power.
To the great One in Three Eternal praises be Hence evermore. His sovereign majesty May we in glory see, And to eternity Love and adore. Amen.”