The Importance of Knowing Christ "It is a growing conviction in my mind, that vital and influential Christianity consists, much more than is ordinarily apprehended, in an intimate personal acquaintance and friendship with our Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the great revealer of God; he is the revealed Divinity. . .To be a Christian, it is not enough that we know and acknowledge a system of doctrine and of law, deduced from the sayings of our Lord and the writings of his apostles. It is necessary that we be acquainted with His person, His character, and His work; that we know the doctrines of Christianity as His mind, the laws of Christianity as His will. The very life of Christianity consists in loving, confiding in, obeying Him, and God in Him; and He plainly can be loved, confided in, and obeyed, only in the degree in which He is known.."     -- John Brown (1784-1858) ------------------