“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus y Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as dung, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him not having my own righteousness…..that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3: 7- 10)
It should be noted that Paul wasn’t a loser. He hadn’t hit rock bottom with nowhere else to go.
He wasn’t turning from a life of failure and counting that as “dung”.
He was one of the most educated and accomplished men of his day.
He was the elite of the religious class. People knew him and they wanted to be like him.
Paul wasn’t writing about the time before he was born again.
He had been a Christian for decades at the time he wrote this letter.
He had travelled the world and been used of God as few men ever had or ever will be. Yet he was still seeking to know God more (Philippians 3:10).
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Paul was saying that the best life had to offer and the greatest accomplishments and pursuits of any man, when compared to knowing God, ranked in the same category as manure.
He was admitting that though he hadn’t arrived, he had left and was pressing toward that goal of knowing God more (Philippians 3: 12-14).
This is a great challenge to all of us believers. What does it say, when the man who wrote half of the New Testament was still pursuing knowing God decades after his conversion?
Certainly there has to be a depth and breadth and width of knowing God that goes beyond just being saved.
Paul spoke of this in Ephesians when he prayed that the Ephesian Christians would come to know the height, length, depth and breadth of God’s love (Ephesians 3: 18- 19)
Most of us we “graduate” in our knowledge of God the moment we are born again.
He said something very profound in Ephesians 3:19
“And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God”.
This may seem confusing. How can we know something if it passes knowledge? Paul is speaking about experiencing God’s love in a way that is infinitely greater than mere intellectual knowledge.
Please notice that when we experience God’s love in this way, we will be filled with all the fullness of God. This is awesome!
There is a dimension to knowing God that the average Christian hasn’t experienced.
How do we get there?
First of all we have to realise that there is more to knowing God than just becoming a Christian.
Multitudes of people have received salvation and if they were to die, they would go straight into the presence of the Lord. But they don’t know God.
They don’t know that He loves them because He is love and not because they are lovely.
They think they have to earn God’s favour and they are needlessly suffering condemnation and lack of fellowship with Him because they feel unworthy.
They don’t know Him as a loving heavenly Father but see Him as a harsh taskmaster.
Many believers think our Father is the source of all their troubles and suffering. They think He uses those problems as tools to teach them something or change their behaviour, even though the Word clearly proves the opposite (James 1:13).
They don’t know their God as healer or provider, or in any other ways He manifests Himself to them.
This is why the Bible says “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). Much of the blame for this falls on the church and us ministers of the gospel.
The Bible says in Romans 10:17, “So faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God”.
The church, as a whole, has proclaimed that Jesus died to keep us from going to hell. This is true and quite a huge benefit.
If that is all there was to salvation, it is more than we deserve. I would preach that message if that was all there was. However that is not what the Scripture teaches.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John3:16).
This verse specifically says the goal of salvation is “everlasting life”. What is everlasting life? It is not living for ever because every soul lives forever the only difference is that one lives in heaven and the other in hell.
Our Lord Jesus Christ defined everlasting life for us in John 17:3 -
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent”.
Knowing God the Father and Jesus Christ is eternal life. That doesn’t start when we go to heaven. Knowing God (eternal life) is something we can have right now (John 3:36). The word “know” is used in Scripture to describe the relationship between a man and his wife that produces a child (Genesis 4:1). It is speaking of intimacy. So “knowing God is speaking of intimacy with Him.
To receive salvation and then stumble through life without experiencing intimacy with the Lord is to miss or ignore the most important part of what Jesus provided.
Let me put it this way: if you received forgiveness through the sacrifice of Jesus and then continue without an intimate, personal close relationship with God, then according to John 3:16, you are missing the real purpose of salvation.
Unfortunately, this is where the vast majority of Christians live.
People believe they need to get saved because that is the message they have heard. So they get saved and then they get stuck.
They aren’t hearing the “knowing”. They don’t realise that this is the time to know Him and enjoy the benefits of that relationship which is characterised by forgiveness, healing, prosperity and deliverance.
Instead they are waiting on the sweet by and by, but struggling in the rough here and now.
Most of us believers don’t have that intimate relationship with God.
So how do we get started in our pursuit of intimacy with the Lord? We can begin by spending time getting to know Him through His Word.
The Apostle Peter said in 2 Peter 1:3 -4:
“According as His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that has called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust”.
Peter was saying everything we need comes through knowledge. That’s because Jesus has already given us everything we could ever need when we became born again.
We don’t need to get something new. We just need a revelation of what we already have in Christ.
Faith is already present (Galatians 5:22-23). We just need to learn how to use what we have.
Prosperity is already given; we just need to learn what the laws that govern God’s prosperity are and cooperate with them.
Healing has already been deposited on the inside of us (1 Peter 2:24). We have the same raising-from-the-dead power that raised Jesus from the dead (Ephesians 1:19-20). We don’t need any more power. We just have to acknowledge what we have (Philemon 6) and then learn how to use it.
It is through the knowledge of God that we are able to receive all things that pertain to life and godliness.
He has already given them, but it is through knowing Him that allows us to partake of His divine nature, to receive all His great and precious promises and to escape the corruption of this world.
Knowing the Word, is knowing God. This is amazing!
Dr Doug Mamvura is a graduate of Charis Bible School. Feedback: drdoug@corporatemomentum.biz or Twitter @dougmamvura
