Lessons in the Wilderness - Part 5
Philippians 3:7-11
This is such a powerful passage for so many reasons. I love how you can feel the redemptive work of Christ in Paul's writings. There is a "divine obsession", if you will. There is a beautiful longing that Paul has to be found in Christ--so much more than he longs to be found in anything else. He wants to know Christ and be found in Christ so much that he wants to know and experience the power of His sufferings, death and resurrection.
Paul considers all things gained at one time a loss compared to knowing Christ. Nothing could compare to the newfound life he has in Jesus. I read a scholar compare this to a man of the sea throwing everything overboard in a storm to save his life –– in the same way Paul discarded every trace of his personal merits, or anything he thought to be great before he knew Jesus.
I wonder if we are aware of the possible transformation that can take place in our lives if this was our desire as well. If we are being brutaly honest, we know Jesus and we love Jesus, but...do we long to know Him as much as Paul longed to know Him? How willing are we to participate in the sufferings Jesus particpated in, let alone WANT to participate in them? That goes to show just how much Paul was changed by Christ. Literally, nothing else in life mattered to him. Nothing.
This isn't to say that we shouldn't care about life or what we do each day or that we are wrong for having interest in other things. But what is the greatest thing in life to us? What do we spend the majority of our time doing? What takes first place? If it's not Christ, the transformation He brings, or what He has called us to, then it's time to reprioritize. When we seek to know Christ the way Paul describes here, we experience the power of a transformed, renewed mind, and a new, Kingdom perspective.
This is such a powerful passage for so many reasons. I love how you can feel the redemptive work of Christ in Paul's writings. There is a "divine obsession", if you will. There is a beautiful longing that Paul has to be found in Christ--so much more than he longs to be found in anything else. He wants to know Christ and be found in Christ so much that he wants to know and experience the power of His sufferings, death and resurrection.
Paul considers all things gained at one time a loss compared to knowing Christ. Nothing could compare to the newfound life he has in Jesus. I read a scholar compare this to a man of the sea throwing everything overboard in a storm to save his life –– in the same way Paul discarded every trace of his personal merits, or anything he thought to be great before he knew Jesus.
I wonder if we are aware of the possible transformation that can take place in our lives if this was our desire as well. If we are being brutaly honest, we know Jesus and we love Jesus, but...do we long to know Him as much as Paul longed to know Him? How willing are we to participate in the sufferings Jesus particpated in, let alone WANT to participate in them? That goes to show just how much Paul was changed by Christ. Literally, nothing else in life mattered to him. Nothing.
This isn't to say that we shouldn't care about life or what we do each day or that we are wrong for having interest in other things. But what is the greatest thing in life to us? What do we spend the majority of our time doing? What takes first place? If it's not Christ, the transformation He brings, or what He has called us to, then it's time to reprioritize. When we seek to know Christ the way Paul describes here, we experience the power of a transformed, renewed mind, and a new, Kingdom perspective.
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