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That I may know
Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His
sufferings, being made conformable unto His death (Phil
3:10).
To know Christ means
that we should be fully acquainted with His nature, His character,
His work, and with the salvation which He has worked out. Duncan
Leighton once said that there was only one thing better than
knowing Christ - and that was to know Him better.
To
know Him means to gain practical day-by-day acquaintance with
Him in such an intimate way that we would become more Christ-like.
To know HIM is more than merely to know a doctrine about Him.
Sometimes we sing, "More
about Jesus would I know......" and this is in agreement with
this verse. We should seek that knowledge of Him not only with our
minds but also in the heart. Paul wished to become entirely wrapped
up in Christ.
Oh that we might know
the power of His resurrection that declared Him to be the Son of God
(Rom 1:4), and experience the
influence which the fact of His resurrection should have on us.
The
power that raised the Lord from the
dead is set forth in Scripture as the greatest display of might
which the universe has ever seen (Eph
1:19-20). It would seem as if all the hosts of evil were
determined to keep His body in the tomb. God's mighty power defeated
this infernal army by raising the Lord Jesus from the dead on the
third day. This same power is
placed at the disposal of all believers (Eph 1:19),
to be appropriated by faith. Paul is stating his ambition to
experience this power in his life and testimony. The power of the
Divine Spirit, which raised Him from literal death, is the same
which raises believers from spiritual death now (Eph 1:19,
Eph 1:20), and shall raise their
bodies from literal death hereafter (Rom
8:11).
There is no one truth that will have
greater power over us, when properly believed, than the truth that
Christ has risen from the dead. The fact that Christ has risen from
the dead will cause us to bear trials for His sake, with the
assurance that we shall be raised up as He was.
Paul wanted to share in Christ's
sufferings. For Paul it meant beatings, stoning, hunger, thirst,
cold, nakedness etc. The experience of being hated.
He realised that there would be nothing of
an atoning value in his own sufferings as there was in Christ's, but
he knew, too, that it would be inconsistent for him to live in
luxury and ease in a world where his Lord was rejected, scourged,
and crucified.
My sin, O the bliss of this glorious
thought,
My sin, not in part, but the whole
Is nailed to His cross and I bear it no
more
Paul wanted to live the crucified life,
to die practically to sin, self, and the world. Not only that, he
was present when the first martyr of the Christian church died; in
fact, he was an accomplice in murdering him! Paul was actually
anxious to pour out his life in the same way. Perhaps he would have
felt embarrassed to meet Stephen in heaven if he had come by any
more comfortable route than martyrdom.
To a large congregation, two visitors
were introduced. The first one was a young orator, who was asked to
recite Psalm 23. His oratory was so moving that it ended with a
standing ovation. Then they asked the other visitor, an elderly
gentleman, to recite the same psalm. There was no standing ovation,
but tears in everyone’s eyes. The orator stood up and said, “I can
explain the difference, I know the psalm, but this gentleman knows
the Shepherd.” Paul expresses our desire too, “That
I may know Him”.
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