that i may know him

 

Over the new year period of 1984 I went with friends to Capernwray Hall in Lancashire for a week’s break. I didn’t know it then but I would return just over three months later for the Spring Bible School having been given a two month leave of absence from work (I still wonder at that provision). However, the one abiding memory of the week was turning in my copy of “Our Daily Bread” on New Year’s Day. The verse for that day had an immediate impact on my thinking. Five simple words combine to form what has become my life verse - “That I may know him…” (Philippians 3:10). Those words, it seemed to me, were the heart cry of the Apostle Paul. And yet how utterly incredible that he should aspire to such knowledge! That I (a finite creature) may know HIM (the infinite Creator).

I turned 60 the other week and my family gave me a beautiful leather bookmark with those words etched on it. “That I may know him…” 40 years have passed since I first read that sentence. It has challenged me, inspired me and urged me to keep going over the years. It has rescued me in my failure and motivated me in my service for God. It has taught me that life is intended to be a journey towards one great and glorious goal...“That I may know him…”

Last week I read Paul’s letter to the Colossians. The central teaching of this letter could be summed up in one small phrase in chapter 3 - ”Christ is all, and is in all” (3:11). Nobody and nothing is great than him. The letter is simply full to overflowing with the character of Christ and the desire to know him.

Two grand truths stood out to me across the four short chapters of Colossians. They have brought me back to that defining reality of the Christian life that first captured my heart four decades ago.

Firstly, Christ is unequalled (he is the world’s sovereign) 

There is an ocean’s fullness of truth in Paul’s vision of Christ’s greatness:

He is the image of the invisible God, 

the firstborn of all creation.  

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 

And he is the head of the body, the church. 

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, 

that in everything he might be preeminent. 

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 

and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, 

making peace by the blood of his cross.

(Colossians 1:15-20)

It is no wonder then that Paul having been caught up in such a wonderful vision of the person of Christ should remind us that in the stuff of life we can know this one “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (2:3)

And second, he is personally present (the Christian’s supreme focus and rest).

Herein lies the great mystery of Christian experience. The world’s sovereign is personally present with his people. “Speak to him, thou, for he hears, and spirit with spirit can meet - closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet” (Tennyson).

Or as Paul, under the Spirit’s inspiration, describes it so succinctly, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27)

I have come to understand that this knowledge of Christ doesn’t just happen as we acquire more information about him, read more books or listen to more sermons. It’s a knowledge that is revealed to us through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, this revelation only comes through a life that’s immersed in the Scriptures and absorbed in prayer. We get to know Christ by walking with him and living out all that he teaches us on that journey. 

I think the essence of this knowledge is expressed in a song called “The Cause of Christ” by Kari Jobe:

It is not fame that I desire

Nor stature in my brother's eye

I pray it's said about my life

That I lived more to build

Your name than mine

(Picture - Buachaille Etive Mor, Glencoe)