Dear One,
To know ABOUT Christ is not the same as having a true experiential knowledge of Him. Head knowledge is not heart knowledge. It is essential to have a knowledge of the truth but we shall not know true freedom of soul and spirit, nor will we know victory in our daily living without personal fellowship with the Son of God. It is in personal fellowship with Him that He communicates to us the power that sets us free.
“Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3). This is the first commandment. God is telling us from the beginning that we are to have only ONE object of trust and that is Him. The Bible unfolds the story of redemption and we learn of Christ, His Son. In Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians he writes, “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (II Cor. 11:3). From the beginning we also have an enemy, the serpent, the devil. This enemy is always seeking to push us to place our trust in something or someone other than God and His Son. This has been the battle through the ages.
Practically speaking, how does this central loyalty to Christ work out in our daily lives? Let us consider Daniel in the lion’s den. Then the king (Darius) arose very early in the morning, and went in haste unto the den of lions. And when he came to the den, he cried with a lamentable voice unto Daniel: “and the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions? Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live for ever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me…” (Daniel 6:19-22).
What was the key to Daniel’s life? His object of trust was always God no matter the circumstances. He practiced what the psalmist wrote: “I have set the LORD always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved” (Psalm 16:8). Daniel had learned to receive from God by faith all that he needed. He had learned what Jesus taught in John 15, that is he had learned to abide in Christ. Daniel had learned to interpose Christ between him and all else. Oh, may it be true also us! May Christ be first in all our affections, me He be to us our very life. May we acknowledge Him in all our ways (Proverbs 3:6).
Let us set Him before us today, and trust Him wholly for all things, and this for His glory.
Love,
Dad