May
21
My
determined purpose is that I may know Him (Philippians 3:10 AMP).
There are few words in
his writings which reveal how committed to the Lord Jesus this man was. The
whole context is one consummate outpouring of his heart to the One whom he said
had "apprehended" him, and he focuses all in a brief half sentence:
"That I may know Him." The impressive thing about this expressed
ambition is the time at which it is made. Here is a man who has had a
revelation and knowledge of Jesus Christ greater than any other man up to that
time. That knowledge commenced whence as he said, "it pleased God to
reveal His Son in me." That beginning devastated him, and sent him into
the desert to try to grasp its implications. Later he had been "caught up
into the third heaven and shown unspeakable things, which (he
said) were not lawful to be uttered." Between, and around those two
experiences, there is evidence of an ever growing knowledge of Christ. Here,
after all that, near the end of his life, he is crying passionately: "That
I may know Him."
The very least that we
can say about this is that the Christ in view was a very great Christ indeed,
who outstrips the greatest capacity and comprehension of man. This stands in
such tremendous contrast to the limited Christ of our recognition and
apprehension! How very much more there is in Christ than we have ever seen!
By T. Austin-Sparks from: An Apostle's Supreme
Ambition
This photograph is by Eric Jonas Swensson of Sound Shore Media.
No comments:
Post a Comment