Many people are familiar with the saying that if you read the scriptures there’s a blessing, and further, if you give heed to the scriptures you are blessed, and then a third blessing comes to those who keep the sayings of the scriptures. This particular model comes from the book of Revelation, but we can take it that all of the writings preserved for us from the eyewitnesses of Jesus and his immediate servants will render the same layers of blessing.

Misinformation short circuits blessings

Take the verses that follow, Philippians 3:10-11, and characterize (1) the knowledge and (2) the metamorphosis

• Knowledge: that I may know him
• Being conformed to his death

that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10-11)

The conclusion from the context and the contending

The context of this knowledge of resurrection power and the conformity to his death is a teaching that lays Pharisee [self]righteousness to rest.  There is a conclusion that everything that preceded our introduction to Christ will fall into the category of rubbish. No group or tradition can claim to have that which Christ brings to the table of righteousness and power.  Knowing him and resurrection power is often thought to be the rites of conversion (REGENERATION – paliggenesia – confession, repentance, baptism, church membership), and the operation of  powers (dunamis – miracles and Spirit fruit).  Some however have chosen to follow the reasoning that knowledge of Christ takes a lifetime. Every convert meets the same Jesus, and Jesus has not designed every one to be teachers, miracle workers, evangelists, etc. It would be a waste of creative power if he did. We are subsequently never at the same level of memory text retention, never at the same volume of Bible knowledge and definitely never at the same level of diligent searching the Scriptures.

Our contending, our combat, compels us to accept intimacy with Christ as the starting point of experiencing resurrection power, and the continuing daily shaping of OUR LIVES to agree with HIS DEATH, something infinitely beyond church membership.

Neither expertise nor learning

You only delude yourself that all believers have a vast treasury of knowledge of Christ. True religion is not talk. It is not telling ourselves that we ought to obey because each one has the same Father, and no believer has the power to talk another into long hair, short hair, improved sight or hearing. We are all dependent on God to, with our surrender, move us to the next level of faith. The next level of our advancement is not something we earn, because our growth and productivity are outcomes of grace; from faith to faith.  Let our thanksgiving repeatedly silence any pride that we have cooperated with the Divine Majesty.

The impatient patient

We cannot wait to declare ourselves free from all the identifying marks of humanity, so we talk about victory in all circumstances, we talk about being delivered from all troubled. Meanwhile, many of us are wretched, poor, miserable and blind, and do not know it. We want to have an abundant life with no death in sight and that is the tragedy of trying to be something we are not. Christ came to save us; all the apostles tell us that he saved us yet, we are telling ourselves “Not so: we’re not saved”.   The purpose of the Cross is not to make all the people of the world israelites, following the law of Moses and the levitical system. The purpose of the Cross is to bring us to the Crucified Life; a life that mirrors the life of the Risen Lord. Eternal life without the cross as the center, the source and the flow, is completely fake.