“MY DETERMINED PURPOSE IS THAT I MAY KNOW HIM”

Here is Phil. 3:7-8, 10 translated from the Amplified Bible:

“But whatever former things I had that might have been gain to me, I have come to consider as one combined loss for Christ’s sake. Yes and furthermore I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege -- the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage -- of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish, refuse and dregs, in order that I may win, gain, Christ the Anointed One. For my determined purpose is that I may know Him, that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving, recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and clearly, and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection -- power which is exerted over believers. That I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed in spirit into His likeness, even into His death.” This autobiographical look at the Apostle Paul’s motives shows the necessity of fierce abandonment for the sake of One Thing - “That I may know Him (intimately).”

Paul willfully suffered many things and “lost everything” the world values, not to earn Jesus’ approval, but rather that in forsaking them he removed what hindered his ability to fully experience Jesus -- He willingly became a man of One Thing: * “I want to know Him” – Submission to the Lordship of Christ through intimacy, love and passion. * “I want to know the power of His resurrection” – Power for ministry. * “I want to know the fellowship of His suffering”- Continual transformation through co-crucifixion of Self. The Greek structure of this passage denotes knowledge (i.e., knowing) gained through experience (i.e., intimate relationship) which is both continuing and progressive in nature, and results in continual on-going transformation. Intimate Relationship, Resurrection Power, and “The Fellowship of His (Christ’s) Suffering” are a package deal, an interrelated process whereby we become Christlike. “But this one thing I do” (vs. 13) forgetting everything that lies behind - his old life and His ties to this world - and straining forward to what lies ahead - the work of God’s Kingdom - I press into God’s heart with passionate single-mindedness - I want to know Him!

The Apostle Paul coined a phrase and used it as a label for his passionate devotion to God. The phrase is “Bond Servant”, from the Greek word “doulos”, one who is serving in voluntary service but with devotion and consummation of the will to the same degree as a slave - but willingly. The origin of this word is Ex. 21:1-6 where, under Old Testament law, slaves were given their freedom in the seventh year of servitude, in recognition of the seventh day rest of God’s creation. But if a slave loved his master and did not want to go free, his ear was pierced to wear a gold signet earring marking him as a Bond Servant, a love slave to his master for life. David alluded to himself as a “tenured” bondservant in Ps. 40:6A (NIV), where inserted between two parallel clauses regarding sacrifice he requests the Lord to pierce his ear as a committed love slave, a direct reference to Ex. 21:6: “Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but my ears you have pierced, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require.” God does not require sacrifices, He requires that we love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. And this is the love of agape doulos… Bond Servants… Love Slaves. In addition to David and Paul, the Apostles John and Peter, James and Jude the brothers of Jesus and Israel are all referred to in scripture as Bond Servants, literally Love Slaves of God. God holds nothing back in His love for us. The suffering of Christ glorified God because it elevated love. Likewise, as we “fill up in our flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ” (Col.1:24) God is glorified through the elevation of our love for our Savior. Compelled by love, Jesus went where He knew suffering was certain. Love always moves to sacrifice, so we shouldn’t be surprised that to follow Christ with passionate single-minded devotion is to abandon the luxury of safety and security - to risk all and count it as “dung” for the priceless privilege of intimacy with Jesus.               

“THAT I MAY SO SHARE HIS SUFFERINGS

AS TO BE CONTINUALLY 

TRANSFORMED IN SPIRIT

INTO HIS LIKENESS,

EVEN INTO HIS DEATH”

THOUGHTS ON JOB

The book of Job precedes the Law, and cannot be deleted or ignored. It can only be reconciled into our understanding of the outworking of God’s sovereignty, His purposefulness in all our circumstances. We are hedged about, and the “roaring lion”, who has been defeated from day one, can only attack with divine permission. “But now my eyes see You”: Job, who was blameless until he questioned God’s sovereignty, repented and “seen God.” It was in this “deepening” of Job’s personal relationship with and knowledge of God, moving from hearing of God “by the hearing of the ear” to “seeing” God, that we see God’s goodness overwhelm all the adversity Job experienced. Some of us need to repent likewise, so that we can see God... “So that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”  

“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord…Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong." Job recognized nothing is outside the purview of God’s sovereignty, nothing!  “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity.” Only God has the power to “Give and Take”, the power to give good and allow adversity... only God, and He does so with intentional purposefulness, growing us into Kingdom children. Lordship expects submission without complaint, and thankfulness even in adversity. For it is in adversity that the Great Physician does His most critical heart surgery: Self must be surgically removed, what the Apostle Paul called co-crucifixion with Christ… Self must die to make room for Christlikeness to emerge. Our mandate is thankfulness: “giving thanks always for all things.” We must learn to kneel down and kiss the hand that sometimes hurts.

AND THOSE WHO ARE CHRIST’S

HAVE CRUCIFIED THE FLESH

WITH ITS PASSIONS AND DESIRES

(Job Ch. 1 and 2; Job 42:5-6; Acts 3:19; Rom.8:28; Eph. 5:20; Gal. 2:20, 5:24)

OUR ONENESS WITH CHRIST

Hudson Taylor, in speaking of his personal struggle with depression during a major trial, and of his need for stronger... overcoming faith: “But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One. If we believe not, He abideth faithful. I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that he had said: I will never leave you. Ah! There is rest, I thought. I have strived in vain to rest in Him. I’ll strive no more. For has he not promised to abide with me? I saw not only that Jesus would never leave me, but that I was a member of His body, of his flesh, and of His bones. The vine, I now see, is not the root merely, but all – root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit; and Jesus is not only that: He is the soil and sunshine, air and showers, and ten thousand times more than I have ever dreamed, wished for, or needed. The Spirit of God revealed this truth of my oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before, that I may know and enjoy the riches freely given me in Christ. I am no longer anxious about anything... for He, I know, is able to carry out His will and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me or how. This is rather for Him to consider than for me. He must give me grace; and in the most difficult situations, His grace is sufficient. So, if God places me in great perplexity, must He not give me guidance; in positions of great difficulty... much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial... much strength. His resources are mine, For He is mine. All this springs from my oneness with Christ. I am dead and buried with Christ – aye, and risen too, and ascended; and now Christ lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

The crucified life is a Person

within a person

living out His life in that person

FOR CHRIST IS…

"For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes."

The great Apostle to the gentiles, Paul, certainly knew how to conjugate verbs; his truth statements are both succinct and expansive as seen here in this snippet from the epistle to the Romans:

* Paul pointed, of course, to Jesus Christ. This one man, both God and man, Who is the divine pivot point of all history, accomplished by Himself and in Himself multiple things in His vicarious act of atonement, His suffering, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. One of the great works He accomplished was to bring to an end the age of seeking righteousness with God by keeping the Mosaic Law.

* Christ is the “end” of the law. The word “end” comes from the Greek telos and means, termination; the limit at which a thing ceases to be; the end of a state; the last in a series of things; that by which a thing is finished or brought to a close. By His redemptive work, which tore no doubt the Father’s heart, Jesus terminated the law and its temporary role. He brought to an end the age of law where men sought to gain a place of righteousness with God by keeping His law. That time is now over; it has ceased to be; Jesus brought that age to a close with, as the writer of Hebrews confirmed, the “death of the testator”, Himself, ushering in the new and glorious covenant of Grace.  

* Reconciliation is a change from a state of enmity between God and man to one of friendship. The hostility between God and man includes not only our enmity against God, but also God’s wrath against our sin: There is serious divine displeasure in mankind’s disobedience. God is not reconciled to man – man is reconciled to God -- for it is man’s sinful nature that separates him from God. Reconciliation is through the death of Jesus who was made sin for us that we might become God’s righteousness in Him. Therefore reconciliation is analogous to justification – the God who judges is also the God who reconciles -- wherein sin’s guilt is removed and the love of Christ comes to constrain our behavior.

* Jesus’ work changed the way of reconciliation to God, the way to gain right standing with God. He put the way to righteousness in place: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Jesus Christ is The Way, the only way, to be reconciled to God. The righteousness which could never be gained by keeping the law, because of the weakness of the flesh, Jesus made available through His work. All men can now be forgiven, cleansed of their sins, justified before God, and made righteous.

* The offer of righteousness which God has made to all men through the work of the One Man, Jesus Christ, must be accepted. Although this righteousness is offered to all, becoming right with God and becoming the “righteousness of God” is “to everyone who believes.” We “become” the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ must be preached in all the world so that all men can hear the gospel: Those that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved, and enter into a place of right standing with God.

THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE

(Rom. 5:6, 10, 10:4; Heb. 9:16; Jn. 14:6; 2 Cor. 5: 14-15, 18-21)