How little are any of us able to say “I know him in whom I have believed.” All Christians believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, in His work and person, but how few ever seek to know Him, how few hearts are really set on learning Him.
Many are seeking to serve Him, and even spending their substance for Him, who forget that “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” People will give up money and time to “serve the Lord” who have never given up a thought, or restrained a word to please Him; and why is this? because they do not know Him! The little one who knows Him, whose heart is set on knowing Him, thinks of His feelings, His desires, and tries to suit himself to them with a greater carefulness and a brighter devotion than the most showy services ever evince; because such an one is thinking everything of Christ, and nothing of himself.
Our acquaintance with the Lord Jesus Christ is what forms us as Christians, for we are not born again, to a religion, or to a doctrine, but unto eternal life, and this is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. This life is in God’s Son; and its expression in us is according to our knowledge of Him who is its source and supply. If I know Him simply as one who has saved me from eternal judgment, my walk will express only that. If I know Him as the one who has redeemed me from this present evil world unto Himself, I must walk as one not of the world, not my own but His; and further, if I know Him as one who has died out of this scene, and passed into another, there may be weakness (and the higher we go, the more we shall discover it), but I must walk as a heavenly man, and consequently as a stranger here, as one who likewise has died out of this scene, and lives in another.
If this be true, how deeply important that we should seek to know the Lord Jesus Christ. To set out from day to day with the simple aim “that I may know Him.” Not to do great things, or to feel great things, but to know the greatest thing of all, even Him in whom all fullness dwells. It is the highest aim for the youngest babe, or for the oldest saint, and the little one who starts with it, will find a pathway through this world that angels delight to look on, and where the Father and the Son find their abode.
As the disciples walked with Jesus through the scene of his rejection, amid confusion, discord, and disease, was not every occasion a new opportunity for them to learn Him? If they met death they might learn Him there, suffering, bereavement, famine, storm, the occasion might be small or great, but Jesus was there for them to see and learn Him, though their hearts were dull and careless as ours often are.
But now we know that it is the great end of our blessed Lord’s own ministry to us by His Spirit, even as it is His chief desire for us, that we might be “conformed to Him;” and it is only by knowing Him that we can ever be, “when we see Him we shall be like Him,” and if we want to know Him, let us go to the Gospels and linger over His ways and words, and acting there, get into company with Him in His weary passage to and fro among rejected men, as the Son of the Father, and the servant of His God; and then remember that it is the same One who says, “Behold I am with you alway,” and who is with us to be learned and recognized, and known in every stop of our poor little hidden, secret paths through this great world which is against us, just as it was against Him—to be known in every occasion, to endear Himself at every turn. Do we look for Him? Are we seeking to know Him in order to be conformed to Him? Is this the work He will find us about when He comes? Many do great works in His name, but it is only the child who knows Him truly who can possibly set its true value on the surpassing privilege and blessedness of being counted worthy to serve our blessed Lord and Saviour in this present evil world.