Knowing Christ Does Not Come From Reading A Book
June 9th, 2010by Gary Bixler
Brothers, how can we know the Lord Jesus as Lord and Friend? Only by hearing the simplest of His Words and obeying them.
We cannot know Christ in any other way. Not by studying the Word, not by reading the latest and greatest book written by someone who claims that once you read his book you’ll suddenly be putting Christ first in your life.
No head knowledge works. Only heart knowledge, and that is gained by spending much time with our Lord, and by going through the fires with Him.
Daily crosses are not popular, and our churches simply don’t teach us to lay down our lives for Jesus and one another any more. But though the narrow road is unpopular, it is still the only Way.
Jesus promises us that if we obey Him, the world will hate us, just as it hates Him. Read Jesus’ Word to his disciples the night before His crucifixion in John chapters 13-17.
Again and again, read this and pray through it with your Savior, because it expresses Jesus Christ’s most important desires for you. He wants you and me to understand that there is no way but the Way of obedience to His simplest commands.
No amount of dissembling on the part of our leaders, with their fantasies of bringing people to their knees by the thousands and reviving the churches by the power of their written and published words, will accomplish what they hope.
The churches are dead because the people in them have not entered the Narrow Gate–which is Christ Himself–because they have never been taught what true discipleship is. You can’t revive dead people without the direct power of God.
It would not have mattered how many books Mary and Martha read (John 11). Lazarus would have remained in the grave if they hadn’t sent for Jesus.
And when Jesus came, did He preach sermons or write books about how He could raise Lazarus? No, He just called the man out. Out from the dead. Out from the tomb.
Jesus calls us today, but we’re not listening. We’re too busy buying the latest book by our ‘celebrity Christian authors’ who want us to learn how to exalt and revere Christ by reading about it. This rebuke is from the heart, and without malice. It is a fact that God never needed any slickly marketed books to change the world through Christ, because He did it without them for many centuries.
Sorry, brothers, as I’ve learned from the Word lately, and from the Spirit who testifies to the same, there are no easy shortcuts to becoming Christ in this world. Either He remains in us, and we remain in Him, and we obey Him, thus producing much fruit, or WE DON’T.
This kind of growth is like the kernel of wheat that falls in the ground and dies. We can hold the seed in our hand, have big bags of it sitting all around in our barns, read about seed in books, watch about seeds on TV, and research endlessly about seed on the internet. We can even meet with others and talk about seed, and revere seed, and try to obtain more seed. But until we throw the seed onto the fertile ground, the seed cannot die, and therefore, the mysterious processes by which God grows the seed cannot start.
We are the seed. It is only in the dying to ourselves and our own lives that can allow Jesus to call forth life. Lazarus had to die first. We must die daily. It is only the dying that produces new life in us through Christ’s power. (John 12:24)
Remember Lazarus. He didn’t work at his own resurrection. Jesus did it all. So you and I must seek Jesus, to know Him, to know the fellowship of His suffering, and the power of His resurrection. (Phil. 3:10) Lazarus knew the power of His resurrection, and so the enemies of Christ became his enemies, plotting a double murder. The enemies of Christ will not ignore you if you come forth out of the grave and become New People in Christ. They will mark you for opposition and hatred, as they do Jesus.
Let’s stop reading what this or that man says, and begin to discover together how to fall to the ground and die to self today, so that Jesus Christ may call us forth from our graves of worldliness and churchiness into the Light of His Day.
A. Brother
(c)2010 Narrowgate Publishing
May be used with or without permission in its entirety.
Website: http://narrowgatepub.blogspot.com/
After a successful business career, I lost everything. I now consider that loss gain, and seek to remain in Christ. Without Him I can do nothing.
Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS
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