Knowing Christ Everyday

Knowing Christ everyday is vastly superior to knowing Christ once in awhile.  I was with a friend earlier today in the context of a Bible study who said that he was thankful that we could have a chance to be with the Lord together during the week.  There was agreement around the table.  To know Christ is always refreshing. 

 

Why do we resist him so frequently?  How is it that we can commune with him with such joy on a Sunday and manage to stay away from anything religious throughout the week?  Christ’s cross makes us so safe from all harm that we are able to finally see the truth – that we prefer our own ways to his, that we would rather be distracted with trifling novelties than to seek meaning from him.  He saves us from having to go too long on our own strength.  On our own strength, things fall through our fingers which, with him, will not be lost.  He frees us to love our neighbors more than ourselves, to embrace life with joy, to see immense value in those who aren’t well regarded in the world. 

 

Knowing Christ once in awhile is better than not knowing him at all.  I’ve known the sheer pleasure of being reminded of his grace when I hadn’t tended to him in weeks.  But knowing Christ every now and again leads to a lot of faking.  We fake-forgive.  We fake-love.  We fake-listen.  We pretend to be working harder than we are.  Knowing Christ everyday frees us from the feared consequences of the choices we make in this life.  Our bosses aren’t our lord.  Our parents aren’t our lord.  Jesus has freed us from other lords so that he can be our Lord in everything. 

 

And he is a good lord to have because he knows us.  He knows our ways.  He knows how little interest we have in being good subjects of his kingdom.  He has given us not only himself, but he has restored our wills.  We can be active participants in what God is doing right now.  We forget this because by the end of the day, we feel the weight of our sin – our egos are bruised, our tails are between our legs.  We know full well we aren’t the supermen or superwomen we thought we were once we’d had our morning cup of coffee.  But the Lordship of Christ is gentle and refreshing, so refreshing that he has allowed us to know his unsurpassable strength even when we are at our weakest. 

 

For every prayer I give to him, I find the strangest most comforting assurances – that by simply telling the simple truth without embellishment, that God may well renew the hope of those around me.  Confiding my dreads to him, I find that the all-powerful God wants goodness and love to arise from the circumstances of my life just as much as I do.