It is sad but very true that many people who profess to be
Christians do not know Jesus Christ, they only know scriptures. They do not
have an intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ, no relationship. We need to have an
intimate relationship with Jesus Christ or else we will never get to know Him.
Paul wrote in Philippians 3:7-11 “But whatever things were
gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 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, 9 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, 10 that I MAY KNOW HIM and the power of His
resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His
death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
Paul only had one thing in mind and that was to know Jesus,
his King, Master, Lord and Savior, that was his soul objective. To get to know
Christ more and more and better and better every day. And that should be our
objective, our yearning in our soul should be to get to know Jesus Christ
better every day, to be in a relationship with Him every day; to hear the
Master’s voice. The Bible has taken the place of Christ in the heart of many
people, the Bible is living in the heads and they don’t have Jesus Christ in
their hearts. That is a sad thing, because if we do not know Christ and He does
not know us He will one day say to us: Go away I never knew you.
Once we invite Christ into our lives, He will start changing
us through our obedience to Him. When we repent of sin and we invite Jesus into
our lives, His Spirit comes and dwells in us and He starts working on us. The
Spirit of God inside of us speaks to us and instructs us in righteousness,
which we must obey. If we refuse to obey it we will not be changed into His
likeness, we will not become like Jesus wants us to be.
Jesus will work on us we will suffer through what we learn
because we need to be changed. Our thinking has to be changed, we must learn to
trust God. He will chastise us. Job was chastised and it was only after his
chastisement that Job got to know God. God allowed satan to destroy Job but
only his life was preserved, Job never sinned against God but at the end Job
answered God. We read in Job 42:2 “I know that You can do all things” It is only
when you have been through troubled time with God that you know that God can do
all things, when He has delivered you and brought you through, then you know I
know: My Savior lives. He says in Job 42:2- “I know that Thou can do all
things, and that no purpose of Thine can be thwarted. 3 Who is this that hides
counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have declared that which I did not
understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 4 Hear, now, and
I will speak; I will ask Thee, and Thou instruct me. 5 I have heard of Thee by
the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees Thee; 6 Therefore I retract,
and I repent in dust and ashes.” Job became quiet before God. He said: “I have
heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, from hearsay, I have heard from Thee
but now my eyes have seen The now I will be quiet.” When you live in the
presence of God, you get to know Jesus better and better every day your words
become less and your own wisdom goes away, you just realize: “I know nothing.”
The wisdom of Christ surpasses all things.
But you got to go through difficult times you got to subject yourself to
God. Some Christians don’t go through difficult times because they are not
obeying Jesus Christ. If you obey Christ and you lay down your own interests, if
you focus on Christ you will have tribulations you will have trials. You stop
doing what you want to do it will be tough on your flesh.
My friends if we do not get to know Jesus Christ, get to
know Him intimately and have a yearning in our soul to know Christ more and
more every day we shall never know Him and very definitely He will say to us:
Go away I never knew you. He says: Seek Me and you will find Me, draw closer to
Me and I will draw closer to you.
You do not find Jesus Christ carrying on with your
normal activities sitting in front of your TV, looking for the pleasures of
this world. You find Christ by seeking for Him and that was that Paul did. He
gave up everything, he says: ”I count everything but dross to increase in the
knowledge of my Lord and Savior.” Unless you put everything aside and seek Christ with all your heart you will not
get to know Him.
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