I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:10–11, NIV)
What does it mean to “know Christ”? This is something I’ve struggled with a lot. Knowing Christ can’t be knowing whether He prefers whole milk or skim milk, or if He likes a red tie more than a blue one, or if He’s a “get-up-and-go” type of guy or the sort to spend hours gelling His hair.
Even the phrase “to know Christ” seems to speak to a deeper part of me. To really know someone deeply, you have to know all of them—their hopes and fears, their weaknesses and strengths, the pretty parts and the ugly parts.
The great thing is that Christ is perfect! However, there are parts of Him that I don’t always understand, like a lot of what is said about God in the Old Testament, and how Jesus is described in Revelation. Some of that seems so different from the Jesus in the Gospels.
But I think to truly know Christ, we have to try to fully understand all His extremes: How incredibly He loves us. How much He suffered for us. How desperately He wants us with Him. How He hurts when we turn away from Him.
When we try to understand all that, and begin to know Christ, it makes us want to respond to Him. We want to be transformed for Him. We are willing to suffer for Him. We are willing to be unselfish and giving, all for Him.
FAITH STEP: Spend time with Jesus in prayer. Ask Him how you can truly know Him. Bare your heart to Him, and He’ll bare His heart to you.
Written by Camy Tang
