To Know Him is to Love Him

I have heard the exhortation to be obedient and transformed in Christ. These are absolutely good goals for anyone. Jesus did say that if you love Him you will keep His commandments (John 14 v 15). My problem seems to be that it puts the cart before the horse. Obedience in itself carries with it an act of will and being deliberate. It takes the reigns of intention. While I'm all for being deliberate and intentional but the focus needs to be on Christ and not the acts themselves. We are to be driven by the Spirit of Christ in all we do.

I prefer the term surrender. Surrender is a ceasing and giving up of doing our own will. It is entering a rest. It is laying down at the feet of Christ the things in our life that war against the Spirit of God. We do this by presenting our bodies in surrender to Christ as living sacrifices and renewing our minds daily in devotion of His Word (Romans 12v 1-2).

Some would say, I don't have knowledge, but I have a heart for Christ. In the spirit of James I would say, Show me your heart for Christ by your knowledge of Him. No one spends time with someone else without learning things about the other person. Things like what are important to them or how they might feel about a certain subject. It would also not make sense to say you love someone as you ought to without wanting to spend time with them.

In our faith we should have the desire to know Him and the power of His resurrection and fellowship of His sufferings to become more like Christ (Philippians 3 v 10).

To have the heart of God we must first have the knowledge of the Holy God. We live for Christ the same way we are saved by Christ. We are saved by grace, and we live by grace. We are saved by faith, and we live by faith. We are saved by hearing God's Word, and we live for Him by hearing His Words. Proverbs 1v7 reminds us that "The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge; But the foolish despise wisdom and instruction". We get knowledge and wisdom by spending time in His Word listening to Him. We are foolish not to.

The Apostle Paul encourages to Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly (Colossians 3v16).

Also, Peter reminds us of the sure word prophecy we have and that we will do well to heed and follow. It will shine in the dark places of our lives like the day dawning and the day star arise in our hearts (2 Peter 1v9).