WEDNESDAY

Philippians 3:10-11

• How can we become like Christ? Why would you want to be like Christ?

Ask any millennial: the peak of Disney Channel was the late 2010s, no question. Hannah Montana, That’s So Raven, and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody dominated the screens, stars with lasting power were popularized for decades to come. It was an iconic era of teen television.

Singer and American Idol runner-up David Archuleta guest starred on one particular episode of Hannah Montana in which the two singers, David Archuleta and Miley Cyrus (who played Hannah Montana) debuted a new song “I Wanna Know You.” Cyrus and Archuleta serenaded the starry-eyed lyrics: “I wanna know you / I wanna go there where you go / I wanna find out what you know / and maybe someday down the road, I’ll sit back and say to myself, ‘Yeah, I thought so.’”

It’s a meaningful sentiment: someone wanting to know you. It implies a distinct intimacy and intention. Paul writes a similar idea in Philippians 3: “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” It’s one thing to say you want to know your crush—it’s another thing to want to know your Savior. Paul writes that he wants to know Christ and Christ’s experience well enough to feel the grit and agony that Jesus felt. Is this a little bit of a strange goal?

Knowing someone enables intimacy. The more we study and reflect on Jesus’ character and experience—yes, even the tragic parts— the better insight we have to who he was. And that is always worth it.