Colonial Baptist Church of Virginia Beach: Devotional

"Knowing the Risen Christ"
by Matt Campbell
from a Selah Moment at Colonial Baptist Church

What a joy to anticipate the day when we all will bow in the presence of the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth! What a privilege it will be to join that eternal song proclaiming His Lordship over all things and all people! Everything will be brought into perfect conformity to His will.

Everything includes you.

Many of you long for the day when your daily battles will be brought to an end. You anticipate the day when Christ will complete His “good work in you.” This desire is good and right.

But we shouldn’t look past the present battles as something to be despised. Despise sin and your sinful nature? Yes! Endure trials and temptations? Yes! But the battles are a tool.They are a tool that Christ uses to bring us into deeper knowledge and conformity to Himself.

The battles are the very thing we need to experience more of the Power of Christ at work in us. The battles are the very thing we need to grow deeper in our knowledge of God.

Listen to the apostle Paul as he tells us about his desire to know and be conformed to Christ.

Paul writes,
“⁸I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith - ¹⁰that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. [Philippians 3:8-11]

Paul had learned something about his life and he wants others to know it as well:

Knowing Christ is worth far more than anything else in your life.
Knowing Christ is in essence experiencing more and more of the "power of his resurrection."
Knowing Christ in this way means "participating in His sufferings."

But Paul immediately warns us not to be content with our present experience of knowing Christ. Don’t be tempted to be content with your "knowledge of Christ," because there is more to learn. Growing in your knowledge and conformity to Christ is a life-long journey. Paul readily admits this and reminds us to follow his lead,“Not that I have already obtained this [full knowledge] or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. . . . ¹³ forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” [Philippians 3:12-14]

Like Paul then . . . We must continue to press on for the goal of knowing the risen Christ.
We have not fully or completely experienced the "power of the resurrection."
We are not yet totally perfected in Christ’s righteousness.

But yes, we anticipate the day when all things will be brought into perfect conformity to the Lordship of Christ.

Including us.

So let us boldly press on and pray that God would open our eyes to the surpassing worth of Christ, that we might experience more of the power of the risen Christ as we daily fellowship with Christ through our struggles and suffering.

May we know more of the power of the risen Christ today!