January 7, 2008
It’s Monday and I’m having devotions on American Airlines flight #1452 on my way from Oakland, CA to Dallas, TX. The past few days with family that I’ve not seen for many years have been interesting. I feel that I know them much better now. Email is great but no substitute for face-to-face communication.
During the weekend, I had conversations with a couple of people about spiritual things. One fellow talked about trusting “the man upstairs” yet it was obvious to me that something was missing. He knew the need for faith, but had no personal knowledge of God. The idea of faith was strong, but without that relationship this man was putting his faith in his faith, not in Jesus Christ.
The apostle John wrote that knowing God and knowing His Son Jesus Christ is essential to eternal life. This is not about being good, doing good things, having Christian parents, attending church faithfully, taking religious instruction, or anything else like that. It is about knowing Him in a personal way, a face-to-face way.
From what the Bible says, and from my own experience, I know that God initiates this relationship. We can seek Him, want to know Him, but it is God who introduces Himself to us, not the other way around. He already knows us; He wants us to know Him, but try as we might, we cannot do that without Him taking the initiative.
In the beginning when Jesus introduced Himself to me, I thought that this new relationship was so amazing, something I would not trade for anything else. Yet like the relationship with my cousins, my knowing of Him needed to be developed. All relationships are like that.
The apostle Paul knew that too. In fact he knew his relationship with God was not totally developed even after walking with the Lord for many years. Late in his ministry he wrote about the status he’d given up to become a Christian. He said, “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.” None of it was important to him.
He continued, “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.”
These words are part of what I was trying to say yesterday; nothing matters as much as knowing Jesus. But today, the next verse fits. It gives Paul’s reason why he was so willing to drop everything that should have mattered to an educated and zealous Jewish man. He said it was “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. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”
He’d known Jesus for many years but was pressing on so that he might know Him even more. Like any relationship, knowing another person happens through experiencing time, joys, sorrows, trouble and trials together. We bond with people when we share life with them, and in this sharing, we become more truly known to one another.
This weekend, I bonded with my cousins as we shared the joys of a birthday party, the exploration of our family tree, the solving of a few mysteries in that tree, eating and swapping stories, and lots of teasing. One of them took me to a quilt shop so I could buy some fabric. For some reason, perhaps because we were alone with one another, I feel as if we made a special connection.
I’m writing all this because knowing people in increasing measure builds understanding and trust, and a greater sense of where we stand with one another. Knowing God does the same. I understand now far more about Him than I did at first. I am more certain that God loves me and is willing to go to bat for me. He will lift me up when I fall, hold my hand when I get lost, give me wisdom when I’m confused.
My California cousins are well educated. I’m realizing how intimidated I might have been as a new Christian because back then it was important to me to be smart and know things, to keep up with the educated elite of this world. But not now. I’ve gladly done the same as Paul in that the Lord has changed my focus. I can turn away from those things that count as status in this world so that I can know Jesus better.
Conversations with very smart people are not the challenge they once were. Instead, I was enjoying the reality of the presence of Jesus who enabled me to not be fearful of ‘looking stupid’ nor was I in the least ashamed of the simpleness of my faith. Instead I just loved these people because that is what Jesus does.
Today’s devotional reading about the sufficiency of this knowledge of God had no verse with it, but I immediately thought of this one from 2 Timothy 2. It describes very well the way I feel this morning. “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.”
Yes, there is God, and I know Him, and He is enough.
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