This afternoon, after listening to two men of God who have now died, but who truly knew God and sought God, I got down on my face and just prayed and cried out to God to know Him more and better. How we need to seek His face! No matter how long ago we may have been “saved” or how long we have been “walking” with Christ, there is so much more to come to know of Him in our lives. The apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:10: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings…”
I wonder how different our lives, churches and world would be if this really was our single greatest passion, priority and pursuit?
Also, consider this. If the “great” apostle Paul expressed this desire even after years of faithfully serving and “walking” with Christ (and writing this while in prison because of his faith in Christ!) how much more is there for us to come to know of Christ, His resurrection power and even the fellowship that comes in sharing in His heart/sufferings in our own lives?
I am restless. I am hungry. I am not content to merely “know” about Him…or be content in what I have come to experience of Him…I want to know Him more. By the way…there is a major difference between knowing about Christ verse actually knowing Christ and having fellowship with Christ.
In fact did you know that fellowship with/knowing Christ is the essence of “eternal life” or being “saved?”
It’s not merely about knowing we will one day go to heaven when we die or that we have been saved from hell or forgiven of sin. Those are awesome realities. I don’t mean to take away from the richness and wonder of those things at all. But it’s not only about those things.
The essence of eternal life is fellowship with God. Jesus Himself said in John 17:3: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” This “knowing God” is not merely an intellectual knowledge about God. It’s speaking of a real (and reconciled) relationship/fellowship with God that will endure (and we will enjoy!) for all eternity! 1 John 1:3-4 puts it this way: “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.” Where does complete joy come from? Fellowship with God. God forgave us, saved us, redeemed us, delivered us, healed us, sent His Son to die for us, and reconciled us to Himself in Christ…that we might have fellowship with Him! It is this alone that satisfies the heart of man. We were made for God. We were made for relationship with Him.
God once declared this in Jeremiah 2:13: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
I believe that’s at the core and heart of the problem today. We may not have “denied” God but we have “forsaken” God and “dug our own cisterns.” What are those cisterns that cannot sustain water? How about sports, food, family, religion, entertainment, work, ministry itself? These can easily become substitutes for fellowship with God. Let me just ask you this question: are you seeking Him with all your heart? Is your greatest passion, pursuit and number one priority to know Christ?
He is the spring of living water! Is this not what Jesus spoke of to the women at the well in John chapter 4? She had lived a sinful life. She was alone and empty. Nothing was truly satisfying or working in her life. Her relationships were shattered and the relationship she was in was wrong. But in John 4:10 we are told: “Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” And then after she responds to that it records: “Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Later we have another incident recorded in John 7:37-39 where: “On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit…”
Do we really believe this?
Jesus calls us…invites us…to come to Him…and drink. He promises whoever trusts in Him will experience the reality of streams of living water flowing from within. In John 10:10 He said He came that we might have life and life to the full. That life is in Him. It’s not in “adding” Him to our lives as an “improvement” to our lives. It’s in Him becoming our life and our life revolving around Him!
I am working on a message from the book of Amos as I write this. In Amos 5:4-6, Amos tells the people of his day (religious people) this: “This is what the Lord says to the house of Israel: “Seek me and live; do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be reduced to nothing.” Seek the Lord and live…”
The interesting thing about this is that Bethel, Gilgal and Beersheba were very sacred and special places in Israel’s history. Men of God had significant encounters with God or significant events happen in those places. Yet years later Amos comes along and tells the people that it’s not about going to these places and going through religious rituals. Seek God! Life, real life, is found in seeking God Himself! Life is not found in going to church…it’s found in Christ! Life is not found in going through religious rituals…it’s found in the Living and Risen Jesus! Seek Him and live!
One of the keys for “revival” is just this…not seeking revival for revival’s sake…but seeking the face of God…simply to know Him! 2 Chronicles 7:14 says: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
This is what is most needed. We need to seek God. Knowing Him needs to become our greatest, deepest, sincerest desire. Seeking Him needs to be the passion, priority and pursuit of our lives. Not just when we “perceive” our need for Him, but all the time. It needs to be the “One thing” we must want and ask of God…that we might know Him. David put it this way in Psalm 27:4-5: “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.”
I come back to this and close with this. If even the apostle Paul expressed a passion to know Christ after having come to know and walk with and serve Christ so faithfully for so many years…how much more is there for us to come to know of Christ? If this is the essence of eternal life, then how can we ever be content in our present or past knowledge of Christ? A relationship is meant to be “alive” and “grow” otherwise it “grows” stagnant. Has your relationship with Christ grown stagnant? Then it is time to seek Him that you might live! Have you even ever really come to know Christ to begin with? If not, seek Him. Jeremiah 29:13-14 says: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.” God created you to seek Him and find Him.
But if have entered into relationship with Christ and it has not stagnated great! Keep seeking Him with all your heart. After writing about his deepest desire being to know Christ, Paul had the humility to write this in Philippians 3:12-14: “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
No matter who we are or where we are at…the word is still the same: Seek Him…and keep seeking Him!
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Ben Foley 