“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:” {Philippians 3:8-9}
“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.” {Philippians 3:10-11}
You could go to church all your life and not know who God is. You might think, “Yeah, I know who God is, it’s Jesus Christ!” That’s good, that’s a start. But do you know who he is personally? Does he speak to you in your spirit when you talk to him? Does he speak to you in your heart and in your soul? Do you feel him in your heart? Do you know who he is? Do you understand him? Do you see him in your mind? Do you see him in your soul? Do you hear his voice? Is he alive to you everyday, guiding you, leading you, every step of the way? Do you get excited about him? Do you look forward to meeting him someday? Do you wish with all your heart that you are with him already because his love burns inside your heart?
If you answer “no” to a lot of these questions then perhaps you don’t know him enough. If Christ is not burning in your soul and you do not see him everyday in your heart, then maybe you don’t fully know who he is. There are those that just go to church for the sake of going to church. There are those who are not really in love with him because they don’t really know him.
It is a miserable thing not to know Christ personally because he will always be a stranger. It will be hard to know how to be yourself with him and talk to him as you should. Without knowing him you may go to the world first for answers before you go to him. When things in your life start to fall apart you will turn to other means of help in this world, instead of looking to him for everything. You will let others decide your future. You will not be seeking after him until he gives you the answers. If you’re just doing a Christian walk because you know about him and have felt his presence once or twice in your life, then you may be like many in the Christian realm and will blindly follow whatever is being told to you from the pulpit.
Yes, he may have heard your prayers, even worked things out for you in your life at one time, but if you don’t know him for yourself, you will believe everything and anything that your teacher or the elders in the church say. You won’t have your own mind. Every time you enter the church door you leave it there. You won’t bring it inside so that you could talk to Christ as they are teaching you about him. You may do whatever they tell you to do. You won’t even question them at all, even when you feel something about what they’re saying does not sound right, you’ll likely pretend it makes sense and continue believing. You will not search the scriptures and talk to the Lord about it because you don’t know him and you’re afraid to talk to him about it.
That’s why it’s so important to have the revelation of God. When he reveals himself to you there’s no way on God’s green earth you’ll believe anything or anyone just because they tell you it’s from the Bible or it’s from the word of God. God now is real to you. Christ now is the one talking to you, showing you about himself. You don’t need anyone to tell you about him because he is telling you about himself. That’s the difference of knowing about Christ versus knowing him for yourself.
Christ will be everything to you. I mean, everything! This world will lose its allure. You will not care about this world anymore. You will be so in love with him you cannot even wait to see his face, or hear his voice again and again speaking to you in your heart. There will be no such thing as waiting until your prayer time to talk to him because you are always talking to him. Any time a thought comes into your mind you are sharing it with the Lord. Anytime you have a question you’re bouncing it off him right away. Christ is a lot of fun to you now. He’s not scary anymore. You’re not even afraid to bring your sins to him or whatever sin-pleasure you struggle with. You confess it to him right away as soon as it happens, or as soon as he points it out to you. You allow him to correct you because you know he loves you. You don’t hide it from him. You come to him and know without a doubt he loves you so much, because he tells you all the time that he loves you. You hear it, you feel it, and you see it. You know he loves you.
So many people today accept the routine of Christianity. So many people today go to church because they have to, because my mother, my father, my wife, or my pastor wants me to. They go to church to make penance for their sins believing this will please the Lord, but are so bored out of their mind while they are there. Don’t I know? I know because I used to feel this way. Ha. But not anymore! Now Christ is so real to me I can’t even take it, I feel like bursting! He’s so real to me I feel like crying just writing that. I love him so much because he’s so real to me. This love came from him. I did not merit this in the least. He gave it to me. And you can have the same thing.
All you have to do is talk to him and not give up on him. Everything that comes into your heart and in your soul, talk to him about it. Do not hide anything from him. Make him your friend because he is your friend – he died for you – he loves you so much.
He hates it that people are so scared to talk to him about their sins. They go around hanging their heads in defeat when Christ has already come to set them free! They allow Satan again and again to make them believe a lie: that Christ cannot help them and does not love them because of their sin nature. Instead of talking to him about their need for his strength to overcome their sins and to hand their sins to him everyday, they let Satan beat their confidence of God’s love away from them. They are cheated again and again and they don’t know what to do, so they just accept it. Don’t accept it. Ask Christ again and again to help you. Do not give up on him. Talk to him.
Another thing you need to do to know Christ and to have him alive in your life is to ask him to give himself to you. This is way different than that acceptance prayer you prayed when you first came to him. This, asking him to give himself to you, is also different than having the Holy Spirit. Yes, you definitely need to ask him for that – but there is way more than just having the Spirit of God so you could speak in tongues and feel better that you have the Spirit of God. This is the folly of many Christians out there who have the Spirit of God. They become content once they speak in tongues and feel his Spirit in their hearts or in their lives. They think that that is it – they’ve arrived.
I know a lot of Spirit filled people that do not know who Jesus Christ is. He continues to be a stranger to them. How can I be so sure? Because when it comes to prayer meetings they’re hardly there. They come up with all kinds of excuses. They are not in love with him. Someone who knows Christ for themselves are in love with him. He is not just a Being who can help them when they have a need, He is their life. He is their joy! He is everything to them! Because they continue to be bound in their sin and pretend they’re free, they continue to go around accepting everything that’s said in the pulpit even when it’s so obvious the teaching is false!
They don’t even bother asking the Lord whether or not they should continue to be listening to some of the teachings because they just assume it is God. They have no discerning in their spirit even though supposedly they have the Holy Spirit. Even having the Spirit of God and being able to speak in tongues doesn’t guarantee you knowing Christ for yourself. Yes, I’ll say it again, even you having the Spirit of God and speaking in tongues doesn’t necessarily mean you know Jesus Christ for yourself. I’ve belonged to churches that believe in the infilling of the Holy Ghost and in speaking in tongues all my life, but so many of them don’t know Christ for themselves. He is really just someone they know about, not in love with at all personally. He continues to be just Christ to them, not “My Jesus! My life, my everything!”
Knowing about him is different than knowing him for yourself. When you know him for yourself you see him, you understand him, he has revealed himself to you – he is alive in you.
I love what apostle Paul said, “Yea doubtless I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord…and do count them but dung. And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness of God by faith.”
That is exactly what happens to you when you know Christ for yourself, the law of God is not just a law to follow and check off, and then when you fail you beat yourself up like you’re going to hell tomorrow. You struggle with the same sin again and again, you have no victory – none whatsoever. When you know Christ and he has revealed himself to you he gives you faith to overcome all your sins. You are not afraid of Satan anymore. You can command him right away to leave you alone as soon as you start to see an evil thought come into your mind because the Lord shows it to you – because he is real to you and he is alive in you and he is watching out for you.
It is important to ask the Lord Jesus to reveal himself to you. This will make the difference in your walk with him. It is so important, such a matter of life and death that apostle Paul gave up everything he learned and owned for it. He said, “I count everything but dung to win Christ.” He continued to say, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.”
There is more to knowing Christ. Don’t settle for what you have right now. Be always asking him, “Please show yourself to me. Please give yourself to me. I want to know you for who you are. Please help me to know you and give my life up to you everyday.”
It is so worth giving your life up to Christ for the sake of knowing him. I have never experienced so much peace in my life before since I have given my life to him and he has revealed himself to me. Before when things went wrong in my life I would lock myself up in my room and seek God and spend hours to know his answers. Now, I just tune into him in my mind and he’s right there. I see him and I can easily ask him to work the situation out for me. I could hear him say to me, “It is well. I will take care of it.” One time my eight-year-old niece was rushed to the hospital because she was having an allergic reaction from a flu vaccine and contracting Guillain-Barre Syndrome where her body started to go into paralysis. I saw the text for prayer from my sister and I felt this is something really serious so I went into my study/prayer room and closed the door. As I entered my room and started to close the door I already could feel the Holy Spirit assuring me that it’s going to be all right. I tuned my mind to the Lord and asked him, “Should I weep to you, Lord?” and he said to me, “Just love Me.” I knew exactly what he meant. So for the next ten minutes or so I started to love him and appreciate him and tell him how much he means to me, and how I cannot live without him. In a little while I hear the Lord say to me, “Done”. Then, “She’s going to be all right.” The next day my sister texted and said they’ve ruled out the Guillain-Barre Syndrome. She asked for me to pray that she will walk so that they could get out of the hospital because that’s what the doctors were looking for. The next day she started walking. One day more and they were out of the hospital.
Knowing Christ is the key to having an abundant life on this earth. You’re not going to take what life gives you lying down. You’re not going to have the devil brow beat you. You’re going to tell him, “Get behind me Satan!” and he has no other choice but to leave you. You live a victorious life because God is with you, because God has revealed himself to you and he is real to you. You know him.
“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” {Philippians 1:21}
