Let’s suppose you are looking at the Grand Canyon from high above from an airplane.
It would look like crevices in the ground and a display of multicolored rock.
The closer you get to rim of the Grand Canyon, however, the deeper and wider the Canyon grows until you come right to the edge, and then you are awestruck by the sheer depth and enormity of the expanse.
This is the way it is with Christ, the closer we get to Him through an intimate knowledge of Him through His Word, the more compelling the wonders of His person becomes to us and the deeper our desire to know Him more intimately becomes.
Paul’s greatest desire in life was to know Christ more intimately.
It is put this way in the Amplified Bible in Philippians 3:10:
“For my determined purpose is that I may know Him; that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His person more strongly and more clearly.”
What is involved in this growing more intimately in our knowledge of Christ? Three words are important:
- Time – We must spend time in the conscious present of Christ. Just as a married couple can only develop as they take time to get to know each other more intimately, so our relationship with Christ requires the investment of our time in the Word so we can know Him more intimately. We are not to just know Christ as the one who is the truth that sets us free, but as the one actually sets us free!
- Talk – We need to communicate with Him through prayer. If a marriage goes wrong, one of the first things that happen is that that the couple stops communicating. They stop talking to each other by giving each other the silent treatment. We cannot get to know Christ better by giving Him the silent treatment by not praying. As we read the Word, it leads us to talk to Him about what we have read, pray back His Word to Him, and share our innermost feelings with Him. We then find our relationship grows and our consciousness of His presence deepens.
- Trust – We need to learn to trust Christ. If we are to get to know what a person is made of and what they are capable of doing, we need to trust them. We cannot be like children in the shallow end of a pool who fake that they are swimming while keeping their feet on the bottom. The appearance is great, but they are faking it. So, we may “look” good trying to live in our own strength, but we need to learn to walk in total dependence on Christ.
May it be our greatest desire to know our wonder Savior more and more intimately!
Blessings!
Pastor Ken Keeler, Director of Church Ministries