The Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ

There was once a drunken man that finally came to know Christ as his personal savior, the person who witnessed to this drunk and eventually led him to Christ was a certain man by the name of John. When the drunk went to church, he started praying: "God make me more like John." A lady overheard him and said: You need to ask to be like Jesus." Turning to her the drunk asked, "Is Jesus like John???"

A sweet story with a serious connotation; the drunk from the story saw Jesus clear as daylight in the person who witnessed to him…John. John had reached the point in his walk with Christ, let me rephrase, John had become so much like Christ, that the old drunk could not distinguish between the two.

As we walk down the path of our Christian life, the Lord Jesus Christ needs to shine through in everything we accomplish, the people need to see Jesus in us, if you take it down to its essence, the people should see Jesus when they look our way, they do not need to see us.

That means a total giving up of everything that we want to achieve in this life, it means that we need to put all of our pride and selfish will aside and let Jesus be the one that leads us, let Him be the one that tells us where to go and what to do. To do that though means that you will have to let go of a lot that you think you love, a lot that you think you cannot live without…Paul had something to say about that in the Bible in Philippians 3:4-9

"…although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless. But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith…"

We see here that Paul was a big man where he came from, he was circumcised the eighth day, he came from the best tribe of Israel, he was a Pharisee in the law’s eyes, he was almost viewed as being without sin as far as his culture was concerned, he was at the head of his class, he had it all, but when we read a little further, we see that he counted all that as a big loss, a waist of time, when it was compared to the knowledge of Christ.

Paul was at the top of his society and he says that it all is nothing more then dung when compared to the knowledge of Christ, to be found in Christ, to know Christ and to let Him show through in his life. Paul set everything aside that this world had to offer and chose to follow Christ and to know Christ.

In our world today we need to stop and consider whether it is worth it to keep on chasing the things of the world, is it worth it to get as many things as you can before death comes. Remember that the person that dies with the most toys is still dead…you cannot take those toys with you into heaven. The only thing that will go into heaven with you is what you have done for the glory of God…and the only way you can truly do something for the Glory of God is if you have a personal relationship with the One who saved you.

You cannot stay outside of God’s will and expect to actually do something worthwhile for Him. It does not work that way. Our good deeds are dirty rags before the Lord, the only thing that the Lord God will accept is something that is done through his Son, and we have to start letting Jesus work in our lives for that to happen.