Paul said, \u2018I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead. I want to suffer with Him, sharing in His death.\u2019<\/i> <\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take an in-depth look at this verse. <\/p>\n
(1) \u2018I want to know Christ.\u2019<\/i> In Scripture, the word \u2018know\u2019<\/i> indicates physical intimacy between two people who love one another. For example, \u2018Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain.\u2019<\/i> (Genesis\u00a04:1\u00a0NKJV) <\/p>\n
(2) \u2018And experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead.\u2019<\/i> What\u2019s dead in your life that needs to be raised? There is no problem that Christ\u2019s resurrection power can\u2019t handle. And how do you access it? When you make intimacy with Christ your top priority, you tap into His power. <\/p>\n
Some of us would be more comfortable if the verse ended after the words, \u2018the mighty power that raised Him from the dead.\u2019<\/i> But the truth is, if you want intimacy with Christ, you must be willing to \u2018suffer with Him.\u2019<\/i> Here, the word \u2018suffer\u2019<\/i> isn\u2019t referring to a bad allergy season or a losing streak on the stock market. For Paul, it meant being beaten, betrayed, and bullied. But it brought a level of intimacy with Jesus that can\u2019t be experienced any other way. If you have ever suffered deeply with another person, you understand this principle. You will never experience true intimacy with somebody by telling them, \u2018I only want to share the good times with you.\u2019 Often, the strongest relationship bonds come from the suffering we go through together; trials that cause us to know, love, and trust each another in a newer, deeper dimension.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paul said, \u2018I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead. I want to suffer with Him, sharing in His death.\u2019 Let\u2019s take an in-depth look at this verse. (1) \u2018I want to know Christ.\u2019 In Scripture, the word \u2018know\u2019 indicates physical intimacy between two people who love […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}