All I Know

I was a religious studies major in college.  When I went to get my master's, I was put in some seminars that gave me extra credits and allowed me to graduate on an accelerated schedule.  What an experience that was!  The first seminar was Bible Backgrounds or something like that.  The first week I read an archaelogy textbook and then wrote a paper on what I read.  The next Monday I sat at a round table with a bunch of nerds that happened to be very smart and showed my ignorance in our round table discussion. 
The next week we read The History of Israel by John Bright.  There is a reason why God did not use John Bright to write the Bible.  His writing was not inspired or inspiring.  Try to read a chapter of that before your next surgery and you will not need anesthesia.  I was taking Greek and doing this extra seminar along with my other classes.   Typically we did not go to class on Monday and seminary classes were held Tuesday through Friday.  That is unless you are sitting at a round table with a bunch of people a lot smarter than you, talking about the 600 page book you read on the weekend before.   For a boy with reading comprehension problems (I never could do well on the 4th grade 'listen-to-the- story-on-record-and-then-answer-the-questions' tests) this was like shock treatment. From time to time I still wake up in the night in a cold sweat after flashing back to hearing that professor look across the table and say- Mr. HEIOWWOUGRHGA, tell us about the bronze age. 
I guess -"That is the age before you get to silver and then gold." was not the right answer.

My point: I spent more time in college getting 4 degrees than I did in public school.  I have tried to train myself both privately and academically to know as much about the Word and about Christ as possible.  Yet one of my favorite passages is still what I read this morning in John 9 when they are questioning the healed man that had been blind.  Question after question and finally he says- "Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."- v.25.

I encourage you to study the Word of God.  That is why I write this.  I encourage you to do it daily.  I encourage you to be in church today, take notes, and get all you can from it.  Extra discipleship courses are great to give us better understanding.   You need all that.  However, more than any of that and BEFORE most of that, you need a personal experience with Christ that opens your eyes and changes your life. You need to know Christ.  You need to take part in what Paul often called the Mystery or the Secret. 
That mystery is two fold.  No one can really tell you the depth of change that comes from coming to Christ.  They can share and encourage you but you have got to experience it.  Until then, it is a mystery.
2nd, it never stops unwrapping.  It is the gift that keeps on giving.  You learn more and more about what you got when you got Jesus until He takes you home to be with Him.
However, all of that starts with your spiritual eyes being opened in the same sense as this man's physical eyes were opened and admitting- "I don't know all that, all I know is Jesus has changed me."  Hallelujah,  O what a Savior!    Yeah, I supposed to know something by now, but none of it is as strong or as real or as life-impacting as knowing Christ lives in me.  "All I Know is Christ in Me."
I hope that is so for you.  If so, enjoy that today in worship!