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11.What was the Apostle Paul’s supreme goal in life?

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To know Christ; to know the power of His resurrection; to know the fellowship of His sufferings; to be changed into His death.

Every Christian "knows" Christ in that he understands that Christ is God’s Son who gave His life for our sins. He recognizes the fact that Christ rose from the dead and one day will return to the earth as King of kings and Lord of lords.

Most of us know the names of a number of people. We have read of famous personages, past and present. Also, we may have many friends and relatives. But it probably is true that there are only a few people whom we know intimately. In order to know someone intimately we must devote time and attention to him or her, sharing joys and sorrows, communicating victories and setbacks, hopes and fears, plans and frustrations. Paul had suffered the loss of all things so he might gain an intimate knowledge of Christ.

Why must the believer let go of all other interests in order to gain an intimate knowledge of the Lord Jesus? First, let us consider the fact that Christ is a powerful king. Kings do not readily commit themselves to other people. A king may have one or two trusted counsellors or mentors in whom he confides. The surprising and extraordinary fact is that the Lord Jesus Christ enters an intimate relationship with anyone other than God the Father.

Also, Christ is God. He is the Word of God, the Eternal Life of God from the beginning. The more complex and profound a person is the more time and involvement it takes in order to come to know him or her intimately and thoroughly. Christ is infinitely complex, infinitely profound. In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. It is possible that we will be coming to know Christ as He truly is throughout an immeasurable future.

In addition, Christ is the One who loves us. The intense, fiery love of our Creator will allow no competing affections. The Lord’s name is jealous. The most ardent human love is but a pale shadow of the love of God for us. Divine love is not a general affection, such as an earthly king may have for his subjects. It is an intense, personal love—that which is portrayed in the Song of Solomon.

Much of our Christian discipleship is occupied with the removal of our idols from us so we may love Christ with an undivided heart.

Paul’s supreme goal in life was to deepen and broaden his relationship with the Lord Christ. Paul was ready to turn away from every created thing and circumstance that the Holy Spirit pointed out to him as a hindrance to his love for Christ and Christ’s love for him.

Paul wanted to know, to experience, the power of Christ’s resurrection.

And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:19,20).

If Satan had the power to prevent it, Satan would have prevented the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The triumphant resurrection of Christ means that the power of Satan has been eternally overcome. Therefore the believer who is abiding in Christ is eternally victorious and indestructible.

The power by which Christ rules is the power of His resurrection Life.

Who is made [a priest], not after the law of a fleshly commandment, but after the power of an endless life (Hebrews 7:16).

There is no other power in the universe as great as the power of the Spirit of God—the power that raised the Lord Jesus from the spiritual prisons that are within the earth and lifted Him to the highest throne of all.

Paul’s desire, that for which he dismissed all other interests, is to live and move and have his being, not by flesh and blood energy and wisdom but by the energy and wisdom that flow from the throne of almighty God. Paul understood well that the person who is living by eternal resurrection life can never be overcome. He is as Moses’ bush that burns on and on and never is consumed.

The individual who is living by Christ’s Life is eternally alive. The person who is living only in his flesh and blood life is perishing while he lives.

The overcomer of the church in Smyrna is promised the "crown of life" if he is faithful to death. To receive the crown of life means to be given the authority and power of resurrection life—authority and power great enough to subdue all the enemies of Christ, to compel them to bow the knee in homage and confess that Jesus is Lord.

We could change the course of the world today if we possessed that authority and power. We will possess it as soon as we are willing to die to our self-cantered ambition and allow the Lord Jesus Christ to reign as God’s King within us.

Paul sought to know the fellowship, the sharing, of Christ’s sufferings to the point of becoming changed into His death.

If there is a "secret" to the life of victory in Christ, that secret is the personal cross of the saint. The cross of Christ, and our personal cross as well, is the "foolishness of God"—a foolishness far beyond the wisdom of men. The cross of Christ and of the victorious saint separates Christ from the False Prophet and the conquering saint from the self-seeking "believer."

As we said, we could and we would change the course of the world today if we possessed the authority and power of the crown of life, the reward promised to the conqueror in Smyrna. This crown is given to him who is faithful unto death. Rightly so!

If we were given all the authority and power we desired we indeed would become the False Prophet, destroying ourselves and those around us.

The cross stands between us and the power that Christ has assigned to the Church. The suffering and death of the cross casts out our self-will, our self-seeking, our personal ambition, our desire for self-aggrandizement, our self-centeredness, our willingness to manipulate all persons and circumstances—even God Himself—in order to achieve our own desires.

Paul was seeking glory and honour, but he was seeking glory and honour in God’s way, that is, by the route of the cross of Christ. Paul was seeking the power of an endless and incorruptible life, but he understood that the abundant spiritual life Christ promised springs forth within us only as the dead fleshly appetites and soulish ambition are pruned back, are circumcised, by painful experiences.

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body (II Corinthians 4:8-10).

Paul was given visions of God. On the heels of the visions came the messenger of Satan to pierce his flesh. Christ explained to Paul that this suffering was necessary if Christ was to be exalted in Paul’s life and ministry.

We may be seeking power. God is seeking to fill all things with His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are brought down to death by trouble, by perplexity, by persecution, by blow after blow falling on us. God keeps on raising us up, and the power that raises us spills over onto other people and raises them up.

We always are being pressed into Christ’s sufferings, pressed into the mould of His death on the cross. It is the death of pain, of weakness, of helplessness, until we grow accustomed to trusting in God alone for all things, for all our needs and desires. Christ raises us up, thereby filling us, and all persons and circumstances related to us, with Himself.

God will never give His glory to another person. If we would receive the Glory of God we must die so that Christ can live in us. We must become an eternally inseparable part of God through Christ.

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one (John 17:22).

The Glory of God has been given to the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus has given that Glory to us. The fact that Jesus has given His Glory to us is so staggering in its consequences, so completely beyond anything we could imagine or desire, that we shall not understand the value of what has been given until we are well into the Kingdom Age.



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