The Challenge and Privilege of Knowing Christ

Many Christians have a desire to have a deeper relationship with Christ, but struggle to enter into one; many times thinking it's just not possible or attainable in this world.

While a number of believers may not say it that way, their actions do.

Assuming there is a determined honesty to someone wanting to know the Lord Jesus, there are a couple of things to remember before going in and talking about it.

When Jesus taught the crowds the parable of the sower, He brought His disciples aside and said this in Mark 4:

13 “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?

The point He was making was extraordinary. Parable reflected the realities of who Christ was and the Kingdom of God. This specific parable was a foundational parable that gives meaning to the rest.

Jesus was basically saying that if they didn't understand this one, the rest would be misunderstood and misinterpreted.

Continuing on, Jesus gives the interpretation of the meaning of this foundational - parables of parables:

14 The sower sows the word.

15 And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. 16 These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; 17 and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble. 18 Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, 19 and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 20 But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”


I only bring this up not to get into the scriptures above, but to say that getting to know Jesus Christ is determined by the obstacles above, and overcoming them in Him.

A walk with the Lord can't be without conflict, challenge; both within and without. That's the point He makes above.

With that in mind, let's talk briefly about getting to know the Lord Jesus Christ.


The first and foremost thing that must be part of us is a detemination that no matter what happens, we will continue on with our walk with the Lord.

This doesn't mean we won't falter or stumble, but that even when we do, we allow Him to pick us up, while keeping our hearts open to Him.

If we don't have this, no matter what else we do, it'll be pretty hopeless and fruitless. The reason why is instead of going two steps forward and one step back, we basically take one step forward and then go one step back; making no progress, and if we're fortunate, just barely holding on to what we do have of Christ.

Now this doesn't mean we won't feel that way, just that the reality must be forward progress, and not going nowhere.

So with determination must come the desire to want to walk with Christ, even when we know we'll meet the cross immediately, and who we are begin to be weakened that Christ may show forth. This of course takes a lifetime, so we must settle into a marathon, and not a sprint mentality.

That way when we do go through struggles, we can hold on knowing they are temporary, and eventually the Lord will bring us through them.

One thing to keep in mind with the two things mentioned here - determination and desire to know Jesus Christ - we can't do it without Him. So we must ask Him to give us that determination, while also giving us the desire to know Him better in the midst of adversity and struggles, or in the best of times as well.

Without Him we can do nothing.

While there is the direct knowing of Christ, beyond that there is the knowing of Christ in fellowshipping with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Modern day church practices make it almost impossible to do that, which is a major reason for Acts29review blog and website, which challenges and calls for the church of Jesus Christ to return to a more organic church experience and practice, which empowers believers to know Christ individually and corporately.

At this time I'm not going to get into too many practicals in this, as it's most important to ask the Lord Jesus to cultivate within us the desire and determine to continue to know and fellowship within, before we think of practical ways on how to do it.

One of the better books you can get and read on that is from Jeanne Guyon called Experiencing The Depths of Jesus Christ, which you can look at and purchase below if you choose.

Once you start on a path in learning to know and fellowship with Christ, eventually it becomes a simple, immediate and continuous step of faith you walk and live in.

It's nothing more than turning to Him within you, and from a corporate standpoint, living, sharing and walking in that together.

In reality, that's the way Christ becomes all in all, and that's the process and the end result of what is called the eternal purpose of God, where we literally bear and are changed into the image of Christ while we walk in Him together.

Brave Miss California Carrie Prejean Loses Crown Standing Up for Traditional Marriage

There can be nothing but admiration from Christians over the bold, brave and true remark by Miss California Carrie Prejean, who said in response to a question on what she thought about legalizing marriage between homosexuals, that she didn't believe in it, and marriage was meant to be between a man and a woman.

Prejean answered saying, "And you know what in my country, in my family I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody there, but that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be, between a man and a woman."

Many in the audience applauded her answer, along with millions watching on the television across the world.

Of course the fading so-called mainstream media made it look like she was representing a minority of people, when indeed, the majority of Americans assert and believe marriage was meant for only a man and a woman; especially Christians.

When you see a bunch of cowardly alleged Christian leaders, who are more religious celebrities, rather than true godly men, backing away from the issue as if the Holy Scriptures had nothing to say about it through the Holy Spirit, Prejean is definitely a hero in my mind, and represents what the majority of Americans, and more importantly - Jesus Christ - believe about the issue.

Another Reason to Stay Focused on Christ - Not Environmental Fears and Hoaxes

We of course should need no reason other than Christ Himself to stay centered in Him, but a lot of people with a variety of agendas continue to hammer through the mainstream and online media that global warming - or as now called - climate change, is about to destroy the earth (yawn).

New evidence points to the continue absurdity and outright lie and/or incompetence of those perpetrating this fear on people in order to forward their hidden purposes.

As far as those of us who are believers, don't be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. Those scriptures aren't just talking about things concerning Christ and Christianity, but all the endless nonsense being spewed forth in the world, which when we trace it back, brings us to the temptation to continue eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, rather than the tree of life which is Christ.

Here's how one person called it: "Dr Allison said there was not any evidence of significant change in the mass of ice shelves in east Antarctica nor any indication that its ice cap was melting. 'The only significant calvings in Antarctica have been in the west,' he said. And he cautioned that calvings of the magnitude seen recently in west Antarctica might not be unusual.

"Ice shelves in general have episodic carvings and there can be large icebergs breaking off - I'm talking 100km or 200km long - every 10 or 20 or 50 years."

Amazingly, this article finishes saying this, "A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded."

Now the question must be raised on why this has happend over the last 30 years, and so-called scientists were supposedly on the completely wrong side of the reality of the situation.

Of course we never hear much that the earth has been cooling for over a decade either. That wouldn't fit in with the global warming orthodoxy that is as false and unsubstantiated as anything you could come up with.

Many Christian believers must ask themselves why they believe such things, when in fact if you do a little digging, you can easily find out these types of assertions based on fear are the norm for people declaring the castrophic accurances based on nothing but their own psychotic fears and agendas.

We must again find Christ and Christ alone as our foundation. We are to never move off of Him, and when we stay founded upon His person, most of the things attempted to be foisted upon believers in Jesus can easily be identified as hoaxes.

There is far more evidence against global warming than mentioned here. The point is to never let this type of stuff be the "exception" that causes us to have to deal with supposed crisis.

By the way, this is one way you can tell when someone's trying to fool and deceive you: are they saying it's an exception, and are they saying it has to be dealt with now?

If so, you know they're full of BS. The reason why this type of garbage is thrown on us in this way is to attempt to create an artificial crisis in order that we can suspend our beliefs in the reality that surrounds us, and take actions based upon nothing but unproven theories.

The worst thing for followers of Christ is to allow ourselves to be taken in by these contiuous lies, and so take our focus and attention off of Christ and onto something that is supposed to be more important.

If we are socialized into behaving that way, there will always be the next crisis; always the next big thing; always the world-ending situation that we must give our money, time and attention to, or mankind as we know we won't survive.

Next time you hear this snakeoil assertion, no matter where it's coming from or what it's about, run for the hills, or better yet - simply ignore it.

The only true problems we want to spend time with is with helping the poor, working on building a healthy family, and fellowshipping with Christ and His people.

I'll touch more on these distractions and the truth or error behind them in the future. I hesistate to do it too much because it can open up a whole can of worms that distracts from the purpose of Acts29Review, which is to focus on the ongoing purpose of God which was determined before time or creation came into being. Now that's something we can give ourselves to.

What is Christian Ministry?

The Real Meaning and Practice of 'Christian Ministry'

Ephesians 4:11-16 (New King James Version)


11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

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The scriptures above are probably the most neglected and resisted from institutional Christianity as there ever has been. They completely undermine the idea of the Church practices we have seen, for centuries, and put the people of Jesus Christ at the center of what 'ministering' is under the new covenant.

But resistance from the existing priest/pastor clergy system continues, and it will keep on continuing, as the inclusion and acceptance of apostolic and prophetic ministry changes the entire equation ... as long as they're not simply more 'titled' men trying to be part of an institutional clergy. True apostles and prophets could never be.

Christian clergy today, for the most part, can't get past the idea of their being apostles and prophets, let alone being built upon the foundation they lay.

This isn't an article about prophets or apostles though, we can get into that another time. This is an article about ministry, and how ministry is defined in this passage from the scriptures.


Here's a breakdown of how it's said here:


equipping of the saints

for the work of ministry

for the edifying of the body of Christ

till we all come to the unity of the faith

of the knowledge of the Son of God

to a perfect man

to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ

that we should no longer be children

tossed to and fro

carried about with every wind of doctrine

by the trickery of men,

in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,

but, speaking the truth in love,

may grow up in all things into Him who is the head — Christ

from whom the whole body,

joined and knit together by what every joint supplies

according to the effective working by which every part

does its share,

causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

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So what is Christian ministry? It's the saints building one another up.

You see in the above scriptures the goal and result of all that. But it can't be done unless the people of Christ are the ones doing it. You can't get any clearer than that here.

The reason this scripture is ignored and resisted, is the only way this could happen would be for the present practices of Christianity to be abandoned, and a entirely new way of church life come forth.

Sure, there's a place for apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers; it's equipping the saints so the saints can do the work of the ministry.

The saints are to be equipped to do the ministry. How much clearer can that be said?

When's the last time you've seen a body of believers interacting and sharing Christ with one another, building each other up in a building? Not very often, if ever. Sitting looking at the front of an auditorium or building isn't built for it to happen. Rather, a relaxed, home-like atmosphere is the environment which this type of life comes forth.

The point being made here is that the saints of God, the ordinary believer, the people of God, they're the ones who are called to do the ministering.

What is considered the 'ministry' over the centuries, according to the scriptures, really isn't considered ministry at all.

I know you can grab a few scriptures where Paul and others may talk about the ministry, but they're referring to laying a foundation and equipping the saints. That's legitimate.

But the end of that is to have a people of Christ sharing and building up one another when they come together. That will never be done in the type of atmosphere where you have a pulpit or 'altar' set up for the audience to watch.

The saints of God were never meant to be an audience, but the very heart of Christ filling them up with Himself so they can share with one another those very things Christ is doing in them.

As a matter of fact, read the scriptures above, and you'll see that no one can become the things Christ has meant us to be without the body functioning in this way. That's why the body of Christ isn't that way, as listening to a lifetime of sermons from a variety of people was never the intention of God to get His people to grow into Christ.

Only Christ within His people can bring this about. All the things you read from these scriptures come about as the result of a people in an organic expression of Christ toward one another.

Truly, there can't be something practically called the body of Christ unless the individual parts are sharing the life of Christ with one another.

This of course isn't always, or primarily, done through only talking to one another in a group setting (although that is important), it's done through the numerous practical ways we give of ourselves and serve one another as well.

Unless the parts of the body are ministering to one another, there isn't a body; at least in a practical expression. It would be like saying our physical body is a body when most the parts aren't functioning. If that were the case, the body would be dead. And that's the case today with the people of God, as far as it relates to how the scriptures define 'the ministry.'

There is no 'work of the ministry,' unless the members of the body are ministering to one another.

The body won't be edified, unless the members do the edifying.

There won't be a unity of the faith, unless members of the body of Christ are doing their part.

The knowledge of the Son of God, as it relates to fulness, can never be known unless the members of the body show Him forth to one another.

Again, read above what it says, and see that unless the members of the body of Christ are functioning in this way, all that is expressed won't happen.

Every member of the body of Christ is to minister when getting together for a meeting, or when seeing one another on a daily basis. That can't be done under the existing institutional church system that most currently live under.

The many-membered body of Christ functioning one to another is the only way all of this can come about. That is true Christian ministry.