Philippians 3:8-11 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
In today’s world of Smart Phones, tablets and instant Internet access, there are many things that we can “know.” “How long is the Golden Gate Bridge?” Pop out your iPhone, ask “Siri”, the golden-voiced digital encyclopedic genius, and you’ll have the factual answer in seconds.
But there’s more to the Golden Gate than just length; truly another “dimension” of knowledge and understanding of the bridge over San Francisco Bay, which might be acquired from the 95-year-old retired construction worker who spent 2 years of his life building it. The knowledge you’ll glean from his salt-parched lips will hold you spellbound as he describes wrestling with massive cables in stormy bay weather, or nearly losing his balance leaning over to paint an inaccessible bolt.
There are facts — head knowledge, and there is the knowing of and from experience. We all know this, and it’s why we prefer the mechanic who has been fixing cars for 35 years over the novice who just graduated from vocational training school.
The apostle Paul wanted experiential knowledge of the Lord Jesus. He wanted fellowship with His sufferings, experiential resurrection power, even, if it were possible, the absolute death of his sin nature. Paul wanted the actual reality of the living Messiah manifested in his life, and he knew and believed this to be his inheritance in the death and resurrection of the Lord. Paul wanted to know Yeshua intimately and personally and share in the Lord’s own experiences. This Passover Resurrection Day season as we celebrate and meditate on the factual reality of what happened in Jerusalem 2000 years ago, we might also join the apostle Paul in his own sincere passion; “that I may know Him….”
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Have you ever heard how a pearl is formed? It is truly fascinating. A foreign object, often a grain of sand, somehow makes it's way into the tightly sealed crack of an oyster. Instead of spitting out this irritating object, the oyster covers it with layer upon layer of a substance secreted from it's own body. After months or even years, a beautiful pearl is formed. The longer the pearl stays in the oyster, the more valuable it becomes.
President Franklin Roosevelt used to attend church in Washington. One day somebody phoned the church and asked, "Do you expect the President to be in church this Sunday?" The rector answered, "That I cannot promise. But we can expect God to be here, and we fancy that will be incentive enough for a reasonably large audience."
If you ever have the chance to visit Jerusalem, one place you must see is Solomon’s quarries – also known as Zedekiah’s cave.It’s a gigantic underground quarry beneath the old city of Jerusalem, an amazing archeological site which offers a glimpse of the handiwork of the builders of the first temple of King Solomon. Can you imagine, as the Temple was under construction, what the craftsmen and the builders must have been thinking about this glorious house they were building?
A large group of European pastors came to one of D. L. Moody's Northfield Bible Conferences in Massachusetts in the late 1800s. Following the European custom of the time, each guest put his shoes outside his room to be cleaned by the hall servants overnight. But of course this was America and there were no hall servants.
As I traveled across the U.S., I occasionally came across individuals who didn’t believe that Israel and the Jewish people were relevant to God’s redemptive plan. Amazed, I would show them this passage in Jeremiah foretelling how God would make a ‘New Covenant’ with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah!
Ever wonder what someone who's never seen the modern world thinks of us approaching a wall, pressing a few buttons and out comes lot's of money? Cash machines -- they're everywhere -- and if you've got cash in your account, you can just go and make a withdrawal!
Roughly 3000 years ago during this month, King Solomon dedicated the Temple he had built for the Lord. So it was in the Hebrew month of Tishrei, the month of the fall feasts of Israel, that the presence of the Lord fell and the glory of God was displayed in the Temple.