If You Know Jesus, You Can’t Hide It!      by Ed Elliot

If You Know Jesus, You Can’t Hide It!                      
Notice how the public viewed the disciples after the resurrection. “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).                                                                   
People who know Jesus are bold and courageous. It has nothing to do with their education or lack of it. It has nothing to do with their family, ethnicity, or the country they were raised in. People who know Jesus are easily identified by their faith in Him, which enables them to be bold and courageous when the world is fearful and timid. There is something about knowing “intimacy” with Jesus that you just can’t hide.  Intimacy with Jesus changes our characters and gives us the boldness of a lion. People take notice when a person has been intimate with the Lord; it is something one cannot hide.                                   
“But more than that, I count everything as loss compared to the priceless privilege and supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord [and of growing more deeply and thoroughly acquainted with Him—a joy unequaled]. For His sake I have lost everything, and I consider it all garbage, so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him [believing and relying on Him], not having any righteousness of my own derived from [my obedience to] the Law and its rituals, but [possessing] that [genuine righteousness] which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. And this, so that I may know Him [experientially, becoming more thoroughly acquainted with Him, understanding the remarkable wonders of His Person more completely] and [in that same way experience] the power of His resurrection [which overflows and is active in believers], and [that I may share] the fellowship of His sufferings, by being continually conformed [inwardly into His likeness even] to His death [dying as He did]; so that I may attain to the resurrection [that will raise me] from the dead.” Philippians 3:8-11  Ed Elliot