A Personal Experience of Christ

For a few more days I want to continue looking at Paul’s great statement in Philippians 3 about the surpassing value of experiencing a genuine relationship with Christ.  The true spirit and heart of Christianity is considering all things to be rubbish compared with knowing Jesus Christ.  We see in verse 10 that a relationship with Christ involves knowing “the power of His resurrection” and “being conformed to His death” in some way.  How do we experience these things in our lives?  We experience the power of His death when we have victory over sin, putting sin to death.  We know something of resurrection power when the Spirit of God works in us a new life that step by step makes us like Christ.  Paul’s example tells us that this blessing is to be regarded as precious above all things.

The knowledge that is ours by faith is often in the Bible properly expressed by sight.  We see and understand new things by faith.  The knowledge that we obtain by experience goes beyond that of faith.  Taste perfectly expresses experiential knowledge.  When we taste the goodness of God and feel His power in our lives, then we have experiential knowledge of Christ.  We have proof of the great value of knowing our Lord in this way by the fruits of it.  The evidence of its reality is seen in what it does in our lives.  A person who has burned a finger needs no other evidence to be convinced that fire is hot.  Even so, when God’s promises are verified in our own experience, nothing will convince us that they are not true.  Those who have felt the power of the Spirit inclining their hearts to God, have unshakable evidence for the things they believe.  It is evidence that mere intellectual assent can never produce.