Have the Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ to Gain Christ and be Found in Christ

In Phil. 3:3-16 we see that Christ is the goal of our pursuit; we need to have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ and pay the price to enjoy Him, be found in Him, experience Him, gain Him, and experience Him in His death and resurrection for the Body.

What a Christ we have! He is the goal of our pursuit and He is the focus of our living and work in our Christian life!

We need to turn away from all distractions and turn to Christ so that we may be brought back to Him to know Him, enjoy Him, express Him, and be constituted with Him.

We all have to acknowledge that, though we love the Lord Jesus, He is still not the focus of all our life and work.

There are so many things in our daily life that distract us from enjoying and experiencing Christ.

Especially good things, such as doing a work for the Lord, helping to coordinate in the church life or for some conferences, and preparing things for the meetings, can replace Christ and be a substitute for the Lord.

We can do many things in the Lord’s name and for the Lord yet without focusing on the Lord and without contacting Him. Oh Lord Jesus!

May the Lord shine on us and expose anything that replaces Christ in us.

May He have mercy on us to shine and expose anything that is a distraction to us, and may we say Amen to His light to cooperate with Him and remove the things that replace Him in us.

Even our marriage, our spouse, our children, our home, and our job can be a distraction from Christ.

We need to take care of all these things, and we need to do our best to work at the office, take care of our family needs, do the daily chores and responsibilities, and maintain a good and sweet relationship with our spouse.

However, in all these things, the focus should be Christ. We need to contact the Lord, love Him, and seek to know Him more.

We need to be found in Christ, not having our own righteousness but the righteousness that is of God in Christ.

As we do things and devote ourselves to doing the best job in the things entrusted to us, our inner being still needs to be focused on Christ.

Without Christ as the focus and center of our being, nothing else matters.

We may do the best job in arranging things, taking care of things, and carrying out our responsibilities, but if we are not in Christ and do not do all things in our oneness with Him to minister Him to others, there is not much real benefit and gain.

Oh, to know Christ! To be found in Christ!

To know the excellency of Christ! To have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ!

To know Him in His death and resurrection, being conformed to His death by the power of His resurrection!

This should be our aspiration.

Our whole Christian life is wrapped up with Christ, for we are Christ living again, and our living should be the Lord Jesus living in us for His expression on the earth.

Have the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ and be Found in Christ

The apostle Paul presented his own pursuit of Christ in Phil. 3:3-16, where Christ is the goal of our pursuit.

We pursue Christ; we don’t just seek to know Him in a general way or to find out more about Him but we pursue Him actively.

When you pursue something, you do your best to gain that thing.

How can we pursue Christ? We first need to have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ.

Christ is excellent, wonderful, and indescribably rich and amazing, but we need to see who He is and have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ.

This can be illustrated in our experience when we visit a certain place and see some precious items on display, then we find out the history and their preciousness, and we are willing to pay the price to buy those items.

Before entering that shop, we did not have the knowledge of how amazing that thing is, but once we find out about it, we gain the excellence of the knowledge and we are willing to buy it.

As we spend time with the Lord in His word, we gain the excellency of the knowledge of Christ.

We see how great He is, how wonderful He is, and how much He is to us in our daily life.

We need a revelation of Christ’s excellency, of His supreme preciousness.

When we see Christ and appreciate Him, we will automatically have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ.

Then, we will just want to be found in Christ, for we love Him, we love to spend time with Him, and we love to contact Him and be found in Him.

It is one thing for us to understand in a doctrinal way what it means to be found in Christ, but it is quite another thing to be found by others in Christ in our daily living.

If someone comes to visit us in our home, will he find us in Christ or in our own culture and habits?

If we live in Christ, we will be found in Christ by others.

If we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, we will enjoy Christ and gain Christ, and we will be found in Christ.

Paul used to be found by others in the law, for he pursued knowing the law, obeying the law, enforcing the law, and doing everything according to the law.

But one day he met Christ, and he saw the excellence of Christ; after he gained the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, the law was put aside, and he was found in Christ by those around him.

When we see a vision of Christ and realize that He is our love, patience, kindness, wisdom, humility, intention, and attitude, we will gain the excellency of the knowledge of Christ.

When we realize that Christ wants to be even our words, our utterances, and our expressions, we will simply love Him and count all things to be loss on account of Christ.

Paul counted all things as a loss on account of Christ, for he wanted to be found in Christ and gain Christ.

Even more, he suffered the loss of all things on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, his Lord, so that he would be found in Christ.

May the Lord grant us all to have such an experience, that we would see the supreme preciousness of Christ and, on account of Christ Jesus the excellent One, we would count all things as loss so that we may gain Christ.

May our earnest desire be to be found in Christ, not having our own righteousness but the righteousness of God through faith in Christ (Phil. 3:9).

Lord Jesus, we love You. We come to You in Your word: unveil us to see Your preciousness. Grant us to see Your supreme preciousness and utmost worth. Amen, Lord, we want to have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ so that we may count all things as loss on account of Christ. Grant us to see that Christ is our life, love, humility, kindness, wisdom, power, and everything. May we know Christ, gain Christ, and be found in Christ. May we not be found in ourselves, having our own righteousness, but in Christ, having the righteousness of God which is in Christ. Amen, Lord Jesus, may we be found in Christ day by day and even moment by moment! Gain our daily living. May others find us in Christ and see Christ living in us and being expressed through us.

Knowing Christ and being Conformed to His death by the Power of His Resurrection

To know Christ doesn’t just mean that we know about Christ and we can recite many verses in the Bible concerning Him.

To know Christ is to see a vision of the preciousness of Christ so that we may gain Christ.

To know Him is to gain Him. It is not only to have the knowledge concerning Christ but to gain His very person!

Who is Christ? To God, Christ is everything; He delights in nothing and no one else.

But what about us? Christ is the embodiment of the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9) and the reality of the shadows of all the positive things (vv. 16-17).

For us to know Christ is to gain Him as the reality of all the positive things in our daily experience.

We need to know Christ and gain Christ, and we need to be found in Christ.

As we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, we will be found in Christ, for we want to gain Him and be found in Him.

When we see how precious Christ is, we will be willing to suffer the loss of all things and count them as refuse in order to be found in Christ.

When we are found in Christ, we are satisfied and the Lord is satisfied.

Our earnest desire is to be found in Christ, having the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, and counting all things as refuse on account of Christ.

We want to know Christ, know the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Christ’s death (Phil. 3:9-10).

The death of Christ is a mold into which we are placed day by day; if we do not try to escape this mold and do not fight it, we will be confined to the death of Christ.

When we hear about death, we may not want to experience it or touch it, but the death of Christ is sweet and aromatic, and we all need to be conformed to it.

We need to take the death of Christ as the mold in our Christian life so that we may be conformed to it.

Day by day we need to remain in the death of Christ.

As we remain here, contacting the Lord, we experience the power of His resurrection supplying us and strengthening us to live the Christian life.

We do not grit our teeth and bear the death of Christ on our own; we have the power of Christ’s resurrection operating in us to cause us to be conformed to the death of Christ and know the fellowship of His sufferings.

Regarding this matter of the fellowship of the Lord’s sufferings, we need to realize that not all suffering that we pass through is the fellowship of the Lord’s sufferings.

There is a big difference between sufferings for being transformed and the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings.

The sufferings for our transformation take time, and the Lord is faithful to transform us so that we may be conformed to His image.

But the fellowship of Christ’s suffering is suffering for the benefit of the Body of Christ (Col. 1:24).

There is a lack in the Body, that is, the fellowship of Christ’s suffering, and some need to meet this need.

On one hand, we need to have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ and be found in Christ; on the other hand, we need to be conformed to His death by the power of His resurrection and have the fellowship of His sufferings.

Paul’s testimony was that he experienced Christ as the drink offering and became a drink offering that was poured out upon the sacrifice and service of the saints’ faith (Phil. 2:17; 2 Tim. 4:6).

Because he experienced Christ to such an extent, he not only experienced Christ as the drink offering but he himself became a drink offering that was poured out upon the sacrifice and service of the faith of the saints, and this was well-pleasing to God.

Amen, may we all advance in our enjoyment and experience of Christ to this extent!

Lord Jesus, grant us to have a vision of the preciousness of Christ so that we may gain the Christ we have seen and be found in Him! Save us from merely having a doctrinal knowledge of Christ; bring us into the enjoyment and experience of the all-inclusive Christ in our daily life! Amen, Lord, we want to know Christ and gain Christ so that we may be found in Christ, counting all things as refuse on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ! Oh, may we know Christ, know the power of His resurrection, and have the fellowship of His sufferings. May we be conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection in our daily life. We take Your death, Lord, as a mold, and we want to experience Your resurrection power to be conformed to Your death. Amen, Lord, may we be found in Christ as we experientially know Christ, gain Christ, and enjoy Christ!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Philippians, msgs. 18-23, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing, Experiencing, and Living the All-inclusive Christ for the Genuine Church Life (2023 spring ITERO), week 1, entitled, Being Brought Back to Christ Himself for the Genuine Church Life.
• Similar reading on this topic:
  – Seeking to know Christ, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, a portion from, Life-Study of Philippians, Chapter 21.
  – How You Can Have the Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ, article via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – The Christ revealed in Colossians: the centrality and universality of God’s economy, article by David Yoon in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – Gaining Christ – a portion from, The Experience of Christ, Chapter 13, by Witness Lee.
  – Exercising Our Spirit to Contact the Reality of the Bible and to Know Christ Practically, article via, Living to Him.
  – Philippians chapter 3 – recommending the whole chapter, Recovery Version Bible.
  – What Does the Bible Say about How to Be Content? More at, Bibles for America blog.
  – Christ as everything in Colossians, article in Affirmation and Critique.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Life is full of opportunities / Ordered by our Father’s hand: we see / Everything’s the best that it could be, / So let’s gain Christ! / Christ our content and reality / To shine out from us unceasingly: / He must have a way in you and me, / He must have a way. (Hymns #1178, stanza 2)
  – Press on, press on, count all things loss. / All that is gain to us, / To win the prize, the Christ of God, / Is far more glorious! / Press on, press on to know the Lord / And resurrection power— / Oh, this is our supreme reward, / E’en in the suffering hour! (Hymns #1205 stanzas 2-3)
  – Pursue Him and know Him; be found in Him. / Count all things loss for Him. / Just gain Him, obtain Him; lay hold of Him. / It’s Christ the central vision. / Forgetting the things which are behind, / Press on, pursue with this mind. / By any means each hour now redeem; / Stretch forth, lay hold of Him. (Song on, Pursue Him and know Him)