Grosey's Messages

Philippians 3:7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.16 Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.

 

We are permitted not simply to know about Him, but to know Him, not only to read of His excellency and beauty in the Book, but to have fellowship with the Apostles, who saw, heard, beheld, and handled the Word of Life.

1 John 1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

 

This is the heart and essence of Christianity.

Other religions are content with ornate rites, an elaborate priesthood, an intricate system of doctrine and regulations, but the Christian, taught by the Holy Spirit, refuses to rest in any of these, and in comparison with the Master counts them as so much refuse.

We may know Him personally, intimately, face to face. Christ does not live back in the centuries, nor amid the clouds of heaven : He is near us, with us, compassing our path and our lying down, and acquainted with all our ways. But we cannot know Him in this mortal life except through the illumination and teaching of the Holy Spirit. Let us ask Him to shed His clear beams on the face of Jesus.

 

HONESTY

Philippians 3:7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;

He realised he cannot save himself.    He realised he needed a Saviour He let his pride go, and traded it all for Christ alone.

'One day,' says Bunyan, ' as I was passing into the field, and that too with some fear dashed on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly, this sentence fell upon my soul, " Thy righteousness is in Heaven," and methought withal, I saw with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God's right hand: there was my righteousness ; . . . I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame of heart that made my righteousness worse ; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, "The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."'

Have you realised this ? Have you experienced this? Are you standing arrayed in this?-for in death, and judgment, and eternity, nothing will avail you but to be clothed in the perfect spotless righteousness of Christ, who was made sin for us, though He knew no sin, that we might be made the Righteousness of God in Him.

 

INTIMACY

8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord,                                                                                                                                                          

10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

We should never rest until we know Him as we must know our friend, and are able to read without speech the movements of His soul. We should know Him in such a way what will please and what will hurt His pure and holy nature. We should know where to find Him ; should be familiar with His modes of thought and methods of action ; should understand and identify ourselves with His goings forth, as, day by day, He goes through the world healing and saving. What a difference there is between the knowledge which the man in the street has of some public character and that which is found in the inner circle of his home ; and we must surely know Christ, not as a stranger who turns in to visit for the night, or as the exalted King of men,-there must be the inner knowledge as of those whom He counts His own familiar friends, whom He trusts with His secrets.

Moses: Then Moses said to the LORD, "See, You say to me, 'Bring up this people.' But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, 'I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.'13 Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people." 14 And He said, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." 15 Then he said to Him, "If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.16 For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth." 17 So the LORD said to Moses, "I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name."

18 And he said, "Please, show me Your glory." 19 Then He said, "I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

Ex 34: 29 Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses' hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him.30 So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.

 

To know Christ in the storm of battle ; to know Him in the valley of shadow; to know Him when He as light irradiates our faces, or when they are darkened with disappointment and sorrow; to know the sweetness of his dealing with bruised reeds and smoking flax ; to know the tenderness of His sympathy and the strength of His right hand-all this involves many varieties of experience on our part, but each of them, like the facets of a diamond, will reflect the prismatic beauty of His glory from a new angle.

TO KNOW The power of His resurrection
As soon as the soul is united to Him by a living faith, you begin to know His resurrection power in your life.  the ' power of His Resurrection.'  The power of the life which resides in Christ pours into the receptive spirit, forthwith it rises from the grave of passion in which it had been imprisoned, escapes from the bondage of corruption by which it was held, and goes forth into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Just as the Christ could not be held by the bands of death, so the soul which trusts Him is emancipated, enthused, raised into an altogether new atmosphere, breathes the life of eternity, is thrilled by the powers of the unseen, and meets all appeals from the lower world with an abundance of life, which is impervious to disease, infirmity, and temptation. Just as a really healthy life may pass through micropes of disease, which would effect the overthrow of less vigorous and buoyant health, so the soul which is infilled with the Resurrection power of Christ, is more than a conqueror in the midst of anything.

TO KNOW The fellowship of His Sufferings

The power of His resurrection life may enter and infill, and in the fulness of your joy you will not stay to count the cost of having fellowship with His sufferings. The experience of suffering will, so to speak, be forgotten in the radiancy of your exultation. As the pain of the woman in travail is forgotten amid the joy of bearing a child into the world, so will the keenest suffering seem but a pin-prick compared with the eternal weight of glory.  It is inevitable that if we are to know much of Christ's Resurrection, and in proportion as we know it, we shall drink of the cup of His sufferings. Every step further into the Risen Life will involve some deeper and more poignant pang of pain. Men will misunderstand us, as they misunderstood Him, men will drop away from us and leave us alone, as they left Him, we shall be compelled to stand in the pillory of hatred and rejection.

To stand with Him in the height, will have its counterpart in our being thrust down into the depth ; to have fellowship under the open heaven of God, with the voice of the Father, and the descending Dove, will certainly involve the being driven into the wilderness to meet the full brunt of temptation. But the soul that really loves Christ will not shrink from the ordeal, it will be glad to enter into His sufferings, because it realises that to know these is to know Him. It is absolutely certain that you may judge your heights by your depths, and gauge the amount of Resurrection Power which is within you by the depths of your sympathy with, and understanding of, the Cross of Christ. You may doubt indeed if you have been admitted into the fulness of the one, unless you have gone down into the depths of the other.

TO KNOW  being conformed to His death,  11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

INTENSITY

but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

PAUL REALISED THAT HIS CONVERSION HAD BEEN HIS APPREHENSION BY GOD.- to hear some men speak you would suppose that the initiative in their religious life had come from themselves, that the first approaches towards God emanated from their own hearts, that they were independent of Him until they voluntarily put themselves within the range of His care and help. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The initiative of the religious life does not come from man but from God. The first steps in reconciliation are not on our side but on His. If we seek God it is only because He has been seeking us from early childhood, and has contrived the span of our life.  When a man turns to God, the first thing he God's Love realises is that throughout the wild wanderings of  manhood, even when he has been most stubborn and rebellious, God's love has never ceased to seek him. The true comparison for the soul is not that it is immured in dark galleries, catacombs, out of which it presently seeks to escape, but that God comes into the intricacies of its rebellion and wandering, calling tenderly and earnestly, awakening it from its stupefaction, shedding on fast-closed eyes beams of light to startle the drowsy sleeper, and eliciting by every method in his power a quick response. We love because we were first loved ; we seek because we were sought ; we leave our far country, not only because hunger impels, but because frequent calls from our Father's house tell us that He cannot be at rest until we are again seated at His table. Paul realised that from his earliest hour, God had As it was by been about his path and his ways.

Finally, he recognised that on the day, ever memorable, of his journey to Damascus, the love of God in the Person of Christ had apprehended or seized upon him.

After all, is not this conversion ? We grasp the hand of Christ because He has grasped ours, we are apprehended to live because His hand has been laid upon us in arrest.

'That I may apprehend that for which also I was apprehended by Christ Jesus.'

And now he must press on.  There is intensity on that word.

Hosea 6:1 Come, and let us return to the LORD; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. 2 After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, That we may live in His sight. 3 Let us know, Let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD.

Let us press on to know the Lord!

Jeremiah 9: 23 Thus says the LORD: " Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; 24But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight," says the LORD.

 

SIMPLICITY

13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

That word calling frequently occurs in the Epistles  'Ye see your calling brethren, how that not many wise, not many mighty, are called.' And again, ' That ye may know what is the hope of His calling' -the hope to which He calls you. And again, ' Who bath called us with a holy calling.' And again, ' Partakers of a heavenly calling.' And again, ' Ye were called in one · hope of your calling' - to which we have been called in the unity of the Spirit. God's Spirit is ever bringing the Divine call to every soul. It is circling around you in the tremulous vibrating air. If only your ears were attuned to it, you would detect the low sweet voice of God, nearer, clearer, stronger, intenser, more thrilling, more eager. The voice of God calls, calls you.

What is God's goal and mark ?

The Apostle, in his early life, was bent on becoming a Rabbi, one of the elders of the people, the chief of the Pharisee party. He was filled with ideals and hopes, which he bad long revolved in his eager mind ; but as he moved towards Damascus, suddenly he beheld the person of Jesus of Nazareth. All his former hopes and goals came to nothing!  He saw the hollowness of being merely a Pharisee ; the formality, the externalism, the inadequacy of the goal which had hitherto inspired his nature.  And now he became inspired with a new purpose so that from that moment he cried, 'I surrender everything ; my hopes, aims, ambitions, my goals-I cast them all away, as a man casts dross, and till I die, it shall be my passionate desire to realise in my own character, day by day, something

of the beauty and glory which I have seen upon the face of the Man of Nazareth. This one thing I do: I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God.' God's voice is calling you to-day to that, to know Him, to love Him better, to know Him more completely.  Men strive to get money, forgetting that there are no pockets in a shroud; the hearse doesn’t come with a trailer for your goods. Some seek for pleasure, forgetting that the pleasures of this world are fading with age; Some strive after fame and supremacy, forgetting that there must come a moment when their remains will lie under six feet of grass, or a small slot in a forgotten wall.  How much land can a man own? A bit six foot long three feet wide and six feet deep, and now, not for that long, before it is resold by the cemetery.

And then this is a high calling because it summons us to where Christ sits at the right hand of God. It compels us to look upward, and set our affections upon things above, not in things on the earth.

This high calling simplifies your life. Is there anything that presses you and disturbs your peace? It will be over soon.  You are heading to a better place.  Is there anything that reminds you of the failures of your humanity? It is being transformed by the high calling of God to know the Lord Jesus.

'This one thing I do.' The Apostle says we must be discontented with what we have attained and intent on the one goal which lies before us. None of us can doubt that success in life is not attained by genius, but by plodding. A man may be swift as Asahel, of fleetest foot, but if he does not set his mind upon a distinct goal he will be outstripped by a man of slower foot, but more resolute purpose. It is not the hare that runs and sleeps, but the tortoise that plods on towards a determined point that wins the race. It is so in business, in art, in war, and in love. Many men are born into the world who are clever at a number of things, but succeed in nothing. There are others 'who concentrate their minds upon one thing and succeed, though they have not half the genius of their competitors. And ' the one thing ' we must set our minds upon, and pursue with unremitting diligence, is  knowing Jesus Christ. And it is good to know that every incident in life may be made to contribute to our high purpose. Every circumstance may be pressed into our service for the attainment of a more Christlike character. Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

What is the whole purpose of man? To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

 If we would press on, we must learn to forget.  We are all tempted to live in the past, to look up at fading laurels which we have gained, as though they could never be equalled or surpassed; to say, ' We shall never do anything so good as that again, never be able to reach quite so high, or realise quite so much ; to paint so fair a picture, to execute so beautiful a statue.' This is fatal. Never rest upon your past attainments ; forget them. Forget the rapture of your first communion ; the earliest addresses and sermons, which you used to feed and rest upon ; the trophies which attended your earliest effort. Do not quote these things as your highest; do not look back, lest, like Lot's wife, you be petrified, and unable to advance.

And do not dwell upon past sin. There may be things in our past of which we are ashamed, which might haunt us, which might cut our resolve or our strength. But if we have handed them over to God in confession and faith, He has put them away and forgotten them. Forget them, and, leaving the past attainments, and the sin which has blackened your record, reach forward to realise the beauty of Jesus. Do not be content with anything less.

' I press toward the mark for the prize.' What Heaven?’  No, Heaven has been won by the merits of the Lord Jesus. A throne ? A crown? No, for these are the gifts of free grace. What, then, is the prize ? God calls us to the goal, the prize to know Christ and to make Him known!

 

With much help from FB Meyer