To know Christ is to love Him

Philippians 3:1-11, Jude 1:24

My wife gets more lovely to me, the more we are married.

This is true of Christ in a way that is not true of my wife, or any other relationship for that matter. 

For the more that Christ reveals himself to me, – through His word, through worship (corporately and individually), through His gathered people and through the sacraments –the more He ,Christ, becomes more lovely to me than anything or anyone. 

The more that God reveals  Himself to me through Christ, the things of the earth lose their  luster. They don’t become bad or worthless, rather Christ just looks more appealing than they do to my heart.

Not only that, the beauty of God in Christ makes those other things more enjoyable. This happens through continually knowing Christ, for to know Him, is to love Him. 

To see Him by faith in the deep recesses of the soul and heart, is to adore Him.

The human soul will not repent from sin, unless it beholds God in Christ by the Holy Spirit. 

However, once the human soul and heart see Christ, and are filled with the Spirit of God, the human soul and heart are properly ruined for any other desire.

Paul writes in Philippians 3:8, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”Here, Paul gives the effect of Knowing Christ, : “counting everything as loss”.  Or to say it the other way around the cause of his “counting everything as loss”: The surpassing worth of Knowing Christ Jesus.

Paul relinquishing his life and the “security” which he had in Judaism, was demolished when He came to know Christ.

Paul’s entire person (soul, spirit, mind  and body) came into Christ’s glorious and authoritative hands on the road to Damascus, in Damascus and at the house of Judas at the Street called Straight (Acts 9).

God is doing this same work today.

 He drawing people to Himself, through the Holy Spirit. He is showing people Christ, and anchoring people to His glorious Son. This is why we preach, this is why we pastor, this is why we keep our hand to the plow in a world that hates God and loves sin: “Because God is stealing spoils of war as He saves the souls of men, women and children through the power of Christ”.

He did the same for you and me. He has the power and resources to do it over and over again as we stay faithful to preaching His word.

Thank God for Jesus, for He is just so worthy.

Be encouraged brothers and sisters, our God is just as powerful as He is Holy, and He is just as loving as He is Holy and powerful. Jude has rightly written,  “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”