Philippians 3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
Knowing the Lord is more than a knowledge of facts about Jesus. We can gain a great deal of knowledge about the Lord through the Bible. It is really the best source of information concerning our heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. However, getting to know Him is a different story. Paul’s desire was to know Christ, to really have a deep knowledge of his redeemer. He wanted to experience the power of the resurrection. That is the power to bring him back from the dead!! Being made conformable to His death, the death that Christ experienced, the sacrificial type of death. Paul desired a knowledge of Christ that would motivate him to die to self, and be raised to live a life that was markedly different. He knew that this type of knowledge can only be attained through the fellowship of sufferings.
Christian friend, do we have a desire to know Christ in a way that MOST of God’s children know nothing of?? Dying to ourselves is not an easy thing, nor a one time decision. It is a process that is includes sufferings. The knowledge of Christ, deep knowledge, profound knowledge, comes through times when we need Him the most. The times when He shows Himself real to us. When our fellowship brings us to tears, times when we know the presence of God like we would never know it had we not experienced our pain. We are refined, cleansed, and transformed in the fire, but just like the three Hebrew boys in Daniel, we are not in the fire alone.
Let’s determine to know the Lord like never before, pray for that resurrection power, ask God to conform us to His death and then realize that in our trials, God is answering our prayers.