Aquaintance or better acquainted?

We begin our study of the Gospel according to Luke this Sunday.  I am praying that it will make a deep and lasting impact on us.  I hope you'll join me in that prayer. 

If you're like me, you've probably never heard of William Hewitson.  Here's what I heard about him yesterday from Dr. Andrew Bonar, a minister in Scotland in the 1800s.

One thing often struck me in Mr Hewitson.  He seemed to have no intervals in communion with God - no gaps.  I used to feel, when with him, that it was being with one who was a vine watered every moment.'  And so it was that he was able to say with truth,  'I am better acquainted with Jesus than with any friend I have on earth.' (The Hidden Life of Prayer, by David McIntyre, 20, emphasis mine)

What would happen if we became a church made up of people who were "better acquainted with Jesus than with any friend [we had] on earth?"  I hope you don't write that off as unrealistic.  I hope it fires your heart with longing to know Christ.  I hope it leads you to the book of Luke...on your knees.  Let's refuse to be merely acquainted with Jesus.  Let's refuse to merely know about Jesus.  Let's press in to know Christ.

"More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord...that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ... Let those of us who are mature think this way ... join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those (like Mr. Hewitson) who walk according to the example you have in us" (excerpted from Philippians 3:7-21)