Know Him

By Tammy Lacock

“Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.” (Romans 16:25)

Warren Litzman begins this week’s podcast reminding us of the two pillars of the gospel of Jesus Christ: Christ’s death on the cross and the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.

What’s the mystery? "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27). The mystery is Christ in us, Christ in all who believe in Him as their Savior.

This is the birthing. The moment we believe, we are born again. Dead to this world with Christ at the cross and born again to a new life in Him. We are literally brand new creations with Christ as our new life.

“And that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20)

Christ, Himself, revealed the mystery to the Apostle Paul; and through Paul’s epistles, He is revealing it to us. In fact, all of Paul epistles are directed to the born-again believer in hopes that the Holy Spirit will reveal Christ in us as well. He’s speaking as a man who has Christ in him and wants all of us to know Christ lives in us, too. Paul wants us to truly know Christ, to begin a love affair with Him.

This was God’s plan since before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), and He’s completing His plan with the birthing of Christ in every believer. We are now His bona fide children, joint heirs to His kingdom with Christ. It’s all ours. He gave us everything of His through His Son by His grace.

Paul tells us the Holy Spirit has one great mission: To reveal Christ in the believer. The Holy Spirit’s ministry is to dwell in our souls (minds) and teach us about Christ. Jesus said the Holy Spirit will never speak of Himself, only Christ. The revelation of the mystery of Christ in us is the very heart of our being. It’s the very heart of God’s plan.

Our new birth was accomplished by God alone. It wasn’t a church thing, a preacher thing, a Bible thing, or a human thing. When we were saved, we had nothing to do with it aside from the measure of faith which He gave to us by His Grace; and, likewise, it’s by His Grace that we come to know Him.

Paul was determined to share his revelation of Christ in us. In all the Bible, he’s the only one to whom it was revealed, three years after his conversion on the way to Damascus. Later, it was revealed to Peter and John in their writings. Paul’s epistles make up only one-fifth of the Bible, and yet he makes it very clear that all we need to know is Christ. His very life in us is our completion. We are now fully equipped to live who God created us to be. If we are to understand and know the gospel of Christ, we must dive into Paul’s epistles and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal Him to us. In 1 Corinthians 2:2, Paul is adamant, “For I am determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”

May we follow Paul as he follows Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1) and know Him, too, as our only life.