Philippians 3:10-11

Hello Everyone!

This Ken Davis video is a "shout out" to my girls....when he talks about not being

able "to move" during the church service!! (Please turn off the music on my Playlist

on the left side bar ~ click the top left hand square.)





hmmmm....I wonder who would EVER tell their girls that.....let's see.......??????

Oh well, moving (pun intended) right along>>>>>>>>


Our Scripture verses for this week:

Verse 10 ~ "I want to know Christ and the poser of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like His in his death,

Verse 11 ~ and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

"I WANT TO KNOW CHRIST..."

Here is a man who you would think would KNOW Christ...

But he is saying that he wants to know Christ....

This gives us all hope that are all in the same boat...

All of us, mature or babies in Christ...

should have the ever growing desire to know Him.

Below is a derivative of a sermon from Charles Spurgeon.

He was a British Reformed Baptist preacher.

Born on June 19, 1834 and died on January 31, 1892.

He was called the "Prince of Preachers".

Possibly, no other author, Christian or otherwise, has more material in print than

C.H. Spurgeon. For more info on this man who drew thousands with his sermons,

click on this link.

I have read some of his sermons and they are lonnnnggggg...

But he had some great things to say.

I have whittled down some of what he had to say, please believe me...

but I felt I had to use his example for knowing God in his sermon ~

"Do You Know Him?"

Here goes...

"Imagine for a moment that you are living in the age of the Roman emperors.

You have been captured by Roman soldiers and dragged from your native country;

you have been sold for a slave, stripped, whipped, branded, imprisoned, and

treated with shameful cruelty.

At last you are appointed to die in the amphitheater,

to make holiday for a tyrant. The people assemble with delight.

There they are, tens of thousands of them, gazing down from the living sides of the

Colosseum. You stand alone, armed only with a single dagger-a poor defense

against gigantic beasts. A door is drawn up by machinery

and there forth rushes a huge lion;

you must slay him or be torn to pieces.

You are absolutely certain that the conflict is too stern for you,

and that the sure result must and will be that those terrible teeth will grind your

bones and drip with your blood. You tremble; your joints are loosed;

you are paralyzed with fear... But what is this ?

O wonder of mercy! A deliverer appears.

A great unknown leaps from among the gazing multitude,

and confronts the savage monster. He quails (to show fear) not

at the roaring of the devourer,

but dashes upon him with terrible fury,

till, like a whipped cur, (a dog in poor condition)

the lion slinks towards his den, dragging himself along in pain and fear.

The hero lifts you up, smiles into your bloodless face,

whispers comfort in your ear, and bids you be of good courage, for you are free.

Do you not think that there would arise at once in your heart a desire to know your

deliverer? As the guards conducted you into the open street, and you breathed the

cool, fresh air, would not the first question be, 'Who was my deliverer, that I may

fall at his feet and bless him?'

You are not, however, informed, but instead of it,

you are gently led away to a noble mansion house

where your many wounds are

washed and healed with salve of rarest power.

You are clothed in sumptuous apparel;

you are made to sit down at a feast;

(you) eat and are satisfied;

you rest upon the softest down.

The next morning you are attended by servants who guard you from evil and

minister to your good.

Day after day, week after week, your wants are supplied.

You live like a courtier.(a person who attends a royal court)

There is nothing that you can ask which you do not receive.

I am sure that your curiosity would grow more and more intense till it would ripen

into an insatiable craving. You would scarcely neglect an opportunity of asking the

servants, 'Tell me, who does all this, who is my noble benefactor, for I must know

him?' 'Well, but' they would say, 'is it not enough for you that you are delivered

from the lion?' 'Nay,' say you, 'it is for that very reason that I pant to know him.'

'Your wants are richly supplied...

If your garment is worn out, there is another.

Long before hunger oppresses you, the table is well loaded.

What more do you want?'

But your reply is, 'It is because I have no wants, that, therefore, my soul longs and

yearns even to hungering and to thirsting, that I may know my generous loving

friend'...

But you are informed that this wondrous being has not only done for you what you

have seen, but a thousand deeds of love which you did not see, which were higher

and greater still as proofs of his affection.

You are told that he was wounded, and imprisoned, and scourged for your sake,

for he had a love (for) you so great, that death itself could not overcome it:

you are informed that he is every moment occupied in your interests,

because he has sworn by himself that where he is there you shall be;

his honors you shall share, and of his happiness you shall be the crown.

...the love-tokens which he gives me, they stay me for awhile with the assurance of

his affection but they only impel me onward with the more unconquerable desire

that I may know him. I must know him;

I cannot live without knowing him.

His goodness makes me thirst, and pant, and faint, and even die, that I may know

him.” (The words in parenthesis are mine.)

Shewww.....!!! What a wonderful description of how Paul must have felt....

Paul's unquenchable thirst to know His Savior better each day!!

Verse 10..."and the power of His resurrection..."

This verse reminds me of Romans 8:11 ~

"But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you."

(King James Version) ~ I don't know about you, but I could use some of that

quickening of my mortal body....

Can we even wrap our minds around the FACT that the same Spirit that

raised Christ from the dead...dwells in us???? ~ Zowee...

Now on to the last part of verse 10...

"...and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like His in his death,"

Gulp...

"Many Christians want the first half of 3:10 , 'to really know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead,' but show little interest in the second half: to 'learn what it means to suffer with him, sharing in his death.' But these go hand in hand, as saints throughout the ages can attest" (see note Romans 8:17). (Wilmington's Bible handbook. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers)

Fellowship = "koininia" (Greek) = a deep communion of suffering that every

believer shares with Christ, Who is able to comfort suffering Christians because

He has already experiences the same suffering and more!!

A "seasoned" believer knows that the deepest moments of spiritual fellowship

with the living Christ are the direct result of intense suffering.

Suffering drives us to Christ ~ bonds us to Christ.

I remember my first husband's mother, my first mother-in-law, Marilyn.

She told me once that when she married her husband, (my first father-in-law

was an only child) her (Marilyn's) mother-in-law did not approve

of Marilyn and did not want her son to marry Marilyn.

Some time after the wedding, Marilyn became very sick...very sick...

her mother-in-law came and took care of her...

After that, everything was AOK between them...

They bonded during that suffering.

They drew closer together.

That reminded me of Andrae' Crouch's famous song that goes like this...

Through it all, through it all,

(Oh,) I’ve learned to trust in Jesus;

I’ve learned to trust in God.

Through it all, through it all,

I’ve learned to depend upon His Word.

I thank God for the mountains

And I thank Him for the valleys;

I thank Him for the storms He brought me through;

For if I’d never had a problem,

I wouldn’t know that He could solve them;

I’d never know what faith in God could do.

Please enjoy this last video..

By the resurrection power of Your love...

And the fellowship of His sufferings...

That we may know Him,

Debbie G.