Pay the Price to Gain Christ with His Riches and Know Christ by Experiencing Him

As believers in Christ, we need to not only have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, our Lord, which comes by revelation, but also pay the price to gain Christ, gain His very person, by experiencing Christ in a subjective way. Amen!

When Paul said in Phil. 3 that he wanted to know Christ, this knowledge is something of experience; it is an experiential knowledge.

He aspired to be found in Christ, not having his own righteousness but that which comes from Christ, the righteousness of God which is by faith in Christ.

As others found him in Christ, he wanted to gain Christ, not just have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ but even more, have the subjective experience of His person.

We believers in Christ are not people who merely believe in some doctrines and teachings, and now we do our best to live according to the set of rules and regulations that we see in the Holy Book.

We are here for something concrete, practical, and real.

The God we believe in has come into

us to be our very life, and we can enjoy and experience Christ as our life and our everything.

There is something real behind the words in the Bible; there is the living person of Jesus Christ who can be our life and our experience day by day.

The Lord wants us not only to know about Him and generally have the knowledge of what He is, what He has done, and what He desires from us.

He wants to become subjective to us, real to us, and experiential in our daily life. We need to come back to the enjoyment and experience of Christ in our daily life.

We need the real thing; we can’t bypass the essentials, the fundamentals.

When we read the Bible, we do not merely see what the Lord is and what He is doing; we enjoy Him, we contact Him, and we are infused with Him.

We drink Him, we eat Him, and we are infused with what He is. We want to know not only what He does and what He is but experience Him, and know Him subjectively.

The central matter in our Christian life should be the subjective knowledge, enjoyment, and experience of Christ.

To have such an enjoyment and experience, however, we first need to see a vision of the glorious Christ and have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. This is by revelation.

May the Lord grant us to have the revelation of Christ so that we may see His excellency and give ourselves to just enjoy and experience Him subjectively!

When we see His preciousness, His supreme and utmost worth, we will consider all other things as refuse in order to gain Him, and we will be willing to suffer the loss of all things that we may gain Christ.

Seeing the excellency of the knowledge of Christ enables us to pay the price to gain Christ.

We need to Know Christ by Experiencing Him to Apprehend Him and Gain Him

In Phil. 3:10 Paul said that he wants to know Christ; this knowledge is not mental knowledge but something of experience.

To know Christ is to experience Him, to enjoy Him, to participate in Him, and to partake of Him (vv. 9-10).

Paul already had the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, but he was still seeking to know Christ.

We may have a clear vision of the excellent Christ and we may treasure this One to the uttermost, but we still need to continue to know Christ subjectively by experiencing Him in order to apprehend Him and gain Him.

He has gained us by unveiling Himself to us, and now we seek to gain Him by paying the price to know Him subjectively.

May we not only know Christ in a general way.

May we not be satisfied with merely reading the Bible and attending the meetings of the church; may we seek to know Christ subjectively in our daily life.

May we know Christ in a subjective way day by day in experience.

An illustration of this is our preparation and eating of the food.

We may go grocery shopping and pay the price to obtain many groceries which are healthy and good, then we may bring them home and cook them.

By eating what we have cooked, the final product of the food, we come to know the food that we have bought; this is a subjective knowledge.

The way we know food is not merely by looking at it, studying it, appreciating it, and being filled with the knowledge of what is in the food.

We know food by eating it and taking it into us; we know it subjectively, and our body digests and assimilates the food that we subjectively know.

The way we know Christ is not merely by having a mental understanding of what He is, what He has done, and what He is doing; it is by experiencing Christ in order to internalize Him, digest Him, and assimilate Him.

The processes He went through are not something abstract and far away from us; we can experience Christ in His human living, crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension.

This is what it means to know Christ.

To know Christ means to experience Him, to enjoy Him, to participate in Him, and to partake of Him.

To know Christ is to live Christ. When we live Christ, what we know of Christ becomes very subjective to us.

When we are in Christ and others find us in Christ, we know Christ subjectively and we gain Him and partake of Him.

How about our knowledge of Christ? Do we know Christ merely on the surface by having some teachings and knowledge from the Bible, or do we experience Christ?

To know Christ is for us to apprehend Him by experiencing Him.

This requires much more than reading the Bible and diving into the ministry; it requires our opening to Him in our daily life in order for us to enjoy Christ, experience Christ, and pay the price to gain Christ.

Merely being able to recite many verses and portions from the Bible may not mean that we know Christ.

It is not sufficient just to read the Bible consistently; it is very good to read the Bible, but we need to also experience Christ and gain Christ in our daily life.

We need to dive into the word of God, apply it, experience it, and internalize it by the exercise of our spirit with much prayer; then, it will become ours.

May we aspire like Paul to know Christ by experiencing Him so that we may apprehend Christ and gain Christ.

Lord Jesus, we want to know You subjectively in our daily experience. We are not content with merely having a general knowledge of Christ or just reading the Bible. We want to know Christ by experiencing Him in our daily life. May we be those who apprehend Christ by experiencing Him. Oh Lord, be so real to us. We open to You as we come to Your word. May Your word be food and drink to us. May Your word become part of our constitution so that it may impart life to us and supply us to live Christ. We want to know Christ by experiencing Him, enjoying Him, participating in Him, and partaking of Him. Amen, Lord, to know Christ! Amen, Lord, to be found in Christ! Oh Lord, to enjoy Christ a little more today! To experience Christ even more right now!

Pay the Price to Gain Christ and Partake of His Unsearchable Riches

To know Christ is not merely to have the knowledge concerning Him but to gain His very person (Phil. 3:8; 2 Cor. 2:10; Col. 2:9, 16-17).

We want to be found in Christ, that is, when others see us and observe us, we want to be in Christ.

When others visit us in our home, may they find us not in our good behaviour but in Christ.

When others observe us at work, may they find us in Christ, and not in our knowledge and good virtues.

We want to live in the realm of Christ so that others may see Christ lived out in us.

This requires that we pay the price to gain Christ so that we may know Him subjectively in our experience.

On one hand, we need to have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ; this comes by revelation.

On the other hand, we need to know Christ subjectively by experiencing Him in our daily living.

First, we need to see that Christ must be our everything; He is our love, kindness, patience, humility, wisdom, intention, attitude, and even our very words, utterances, and expressions.

When we see a vision of the all-inclusive, excellent Christ, we will consider Him as the most excellent One, and all other things will be refuse to us.

Even more, on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, we will be willing to suffer the loss of all things so that we may be found in Christ.

May the Lord have mercy on us and unveil us to see a vision of the excellent Christ so that we may be captivated and inwardly motivated to drop all other things to just gain Christ.

In order for us to gain something requires the paying of a price (Phil. 3:7-8).

Paul paid a big price; he had many achievements and attainments, and he gave them all up on account of Christ.

He said it was worth it, for he considered Christ as the most excellent One and all other things as loss on account of Christ.

For us to gain Christ is to experience, enjoy, and take possession of His unsearchable riches by paying a price (Eph. 3:8; Rev. 3:18).

To pay the price to gain Christ is not merely to wake up a little earlier in the morning to read the Bible or even to go to the Full-Time Training.

Yes, this is a way of paying the price, but to pay the price to gain Christ, we actually have to experience Christ and gain Him.

What have we lost in order to gain Christ?

Paul lost all things, and he itemized the things he lost on account of Christ. But what about us?

What did we give up as a result of seeing the excellency of Christ which enabled us to pay the price to gain Christ?

We need to be willing to pay the price of losing our soul, giving up the world, and even more, giving up all things on account of Christ.

To pay a price is to put aside everything that is apart from God in order to gain Christ and enter more into His organic salvation.

On one hand, God’s salvation is free; on the other hand, for us to have the reward, we need to pay the price to gain Christ.

We must forsake everything that is outside of God, including ourselves, the flesh, the natural being, our disposition, our family, our religion, our wealth, our reputation, our position, and our future.

All these things need to be put aside and forsaken in order for us to gain Christ.

The Lord Jesus said many times that we need to forsake all our possessions and follow Him.

Paul said that we need to suffer the loss of all things to gain Christ.

We must do this because God in Christ intends to work Himself into us so that we may be united and mingled with Him.

May we be willing to pay the price to gain Christ by putting aside everything that is outside of God, everything that is not in agreement with God, and everything that replaces God and is a substitute for God.

If we do not pay the price of all things, we will not allow God the adequate opportunity and sufficient ground to freely work Himself into us.

Our Christ is the embodiment of the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:19) and the reality of the shadows of all the positive things (vv. 16-17).

We want to gain Christ so that we may experience, enjoy, and take possession of all His unsearchable riches (Eph. 3:8) and live in Christ to become those who are in Him in experience.

Lord Jesus, we want to pay the price to gain Christ so that we may be found in Him! Grant us to have a clear vision of the excellent Christ so that we may be inwardly supplied and motivated to give up all things apart from Christ. Amen, Lord, may the excellency of the knowledge of Christ cause us to put aside everything apart from God so that we may gain more of God! May we be willing to pay the price of losing our soul-life, denying the self, and suffering the loss of all things on account of Christ. Dear Lord Jesus, we want to gain You by enjoying, experiencing, and partaking of all Your riches! Strengthen us into our inner man every day so that we may pay the price to gain Christ in our experience!

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 brother James Lee in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Philippians, msg. 20, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing, Experiencing, and Enjoying Christ as Revealed in Philippians (2023 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 4, entitled, Knowing Christ and the Power of His Resurrection.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Gaining Christ, a portion from, The Experience of Christ, Chapter 13, by Witness Lee.
  – New Jerusalem: Our Master Bought Us, via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – The significance of paying a price, a portion from, How to Be Useful to the Lord, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee.
  – Brothers Becoming Sons of Oil, testimony via, Living to Him.
  – What to Do about Your Old Way of Life After You’re Saved, via, Bibles for America blog.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Pursue Him and seize Him, Christ the supreme. / Just love this precious Person. / Forgetting and leaving all other things, / Love Him with your whole being. / Christ now is my center and reality, / My life for eternity. / All things are just dung compared to Him, / So love and just gain Him! (Song on, Pursue Him and know Him, stanzas 2-3)
  – Through the Cross, O Lord, I pray, / Put my soul-life all away; / Make me any price to pay, / Full anointing to receive. (Hymns #279 chorus)
  – Christ to me is so subjective, / Regulating all the day; / He corrects and rules and guides me, / And adjusts in every way. / Christ to me is so subjective, / All my thirst He satisfies; / With His riches He supplies me, / Thus God’s fulness testifies. (Hymns #537 stanzas 5-6)