by Pastor Fred G. Zaspel

One of the benefits of a happy marriage is the continually increased knowledge of your spouse. You meet, and you get acquainted, and somehow in the interchange of it all a relationship develops. You “get to know” each other. There is personal involvement and acquaintance until you can say something like, “We know each other inside and out.” And when finally you know each other well enough, you decide to marry.

Then looking back after many years you find that you know your spouse so much better than you did when you were first married. And in a good marriage, at least, that growing and increased knowledge of one another only adds to the depth of love and appreciation.

In some very important ways, all this resembles our relationship with Christ. When we first come to know him we know little about him, and we have little experience with him. To be sure, we do know him. We know him well enough to trust him, and we know him well enough to abandon everything else for him. And we love him deeply. His glories and beauty overwhelm us, and we trust him with our very souls.

Yet in time we find ourselves knowing him better — and as a result we love him more and trust him more deeply. In our time with him we experience his providential care for us, we learn more of him in his Word, we taste again and again of his love for us, and there is a growing appreciation of him. He becomes more attractive to us all the time, and we admire him with all our hearts.

Yet still, precisely because we have found him to be so satisfying, we long to know him better. This was the apostle Paul’s ambition – “That I might know him!”

And this is the heart joy and ambition of every believer. There is nothing more enriching to our souls than to know Jesus Christ.