If we want to grow in grace and have more hope, we must seek a more experimental knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. How little do we know of Him! Our cold affections toward Him are a witness against ourselves. If our eyes were more open to what He is and does for us, we would love Him more. There are some Christians whose minds seem ever running on the doctrine of sanctification to the exclusion of everything else. They can argue warmly about little points of practice; yet they are cold about Christ. They live by rule, they walk strictly, they do many things, they fancy in a short time they shall be very strong. But all this time they lose sight of this grand truth that nothing is so sanctifying as knowledge of the Lord Jesus and communion with Him. "Abide in me, He says Himself, "and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me" (John 15:4). Christ must be the spring of our holiness as well as the rock of our faith. Christ must be all in all.
I doubt not He is precious to you that believe. Precious He ought to be because of His offices, and precious because of His work. Precious He ought to be for what He has done already. He has called us, quickened us, washed us, justified us. Precious He ought to be for what He is doing even now: strengthening us, interceding for us, sympathizing with us.
Precious He ought to be for what He will do yet: He will keep us to the end, raise us, gather us at His coming› present us faultless before God's throne, give us rest with Him in His kingdom. But oh, reader, Christ ought to be far more precious to us than He ever has been yet!
Nothing else will either save, satisfy, or sanctity a sinful soul. We all need a more experimental knowledge of Christ!
Adapted from Our Great Redeemer: 365 Days with J. C. Ryle
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