Greater Knowledge of Christ: Let it powerfully melt, sweeten, and ravish our hearts!

Here are a few excerpts from John Flavel's, The Fountain of Life Opened Up where he comments on 1 Cor. 2:2: "For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." Let this spur us on in our pursuit to know Christ as the highest goal of our lives.

"Poor Christian, be not dejected, because you see yourself out-stripped and excelled by so many in other parts of knowledge; if you know Jesus Christ, you know enough to comfort and save your soul. Many learned philosophers are now in hell, and many illiterate Christians in heaven."

"Let all that mind the honor of religion, or the peace and comfort of their own souls, wholly sequester and apply themselves to the study of Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Therefore spend we ourselves upon other studies, when all excellency, sweetness, and desirableness is concentered in this one? Jesus Christ is fairer than the children of men, the chief among ten thousands, "as the apple-tree among the trees of the woods." These things which singly ravish and delight the souls of men, are all found conjunctly in Christ. O what a blessed Christ is this! whom to know is eternal life. From the knowledge of Jesus Christ do bud forth all the fruits of comfort, and that for all seasons and conditions."

"Study to know Christ more intensively, to get the experimental taste and lively power of his knowledge upon your hearts and affections: This is the knowledge that carries all the sweetness and comfort in it. O then separate, devote, and wholly give yourself, your time, your strength to this most sweet transcendent study."

"Let us see that our knowledge of Christ be not a powerless, barren, unpractical knowledge: O that, in its passage from our understanding to our lips, it might powerfully melt, sweeten, and ravish our hearts!"

"Take heed that you rest not satisfied with that knowledge of Christ you have attained, but grow on towards perfection. It is the pride and ignorance of many professors, when they have got a few raw and undigested notions, to swell with self-conceit of their excellent attainments. And it is the sin, even of the best of saints, when they see how deep the knowledge of Christ lies, and what pains they must take to dig for it, to throw by the shovel of duty, and cry, 'Dig we cannot.' To your work, Christians, to your work; let not your candle go out: sequester yourselves to this study, look what fellowship, and correspondence are between the two worlds; count all, therefore, but dross in comparison of that excellency which is in the knowledge of Jesus Christ."