This is the Sparks devotional from yesterday. I was struck by how these few verses really encapsulated what the Lord did with and in Paul! "That I may know Him" is certainly the central theme in all of Paul's ministry. And how did God carry that out with Paul? This verse then demonstrates how that occurred: "When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me." And then Paul was caught up to see things he was not allowed to utter. What did the Lord show Paul!? I believe it was an expansive view of what "His Son in me" really meant in its fullness. We have no natural idea of the height and breadth and length and depth of Christ, but His indwelling Spirit is revealing these vast expanses of Christ to us!
Quote:
May 21
My determined purpose is that 1 may know Him.
(Philippians 3:10 AMP)
There are few words in his writings which reveal how committed to
the Lord Jesus this man was. The whole context is one consummate
outpouring of his heart to the One whom he said had "apprehended" him,
and he focuses all in a brief half sentence: "That I may know Him." The
impressive thing about this expressed ambition is the time at which it is
made. Here is a man who has had a revelation and knowledge of Jesus
Christ greater than any other man up to that time. That knowledge
commenced whence as he said, "it pleased God to reveal His Son in me."
That beginning devastated him, and sent him into the desert to try to grasp
its implications.
Later he had been "caught up into the third heaven and shown
unspeakable things, which (he said) were not lawful to be uttered."
Between, and around those two experiences, there is evidence of an ever
growing knowledge of Christ. Here, after all that, near the end of his life,
he is crying passionately: "That I may know Him." The very least that we
can say about this is that the Christ in view was a very great Christ indeed,
who outstrips the greatest capacity and comprehension of man. This stands
in such tremendous contrast to the limited Christ of our recognition and
apprehension! How very much more there is in Christ than we have ever
seen!
From: An Apostle's Supreme Ambition
www.austin-sparks.net/english/000688.html
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