“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:7-11).
Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Our desire is to know You and be found in You at the end of our days. May we be willing to surrender whatever could keep us from knowing and serving you better. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray! Amen.
We have been looking forward and backward at Paul’s conversion story. Today we come to another one of his profound declarations of what life meant to him after getting to know Jesus in a meaningful relationship of love; and leaving his legalistic beliefs behind.
The theme of death is mentioned several times in Paul’s testimonies of getting to know Christ. The very first text we used in talking about Paul’s conversion was Galatians 2:20, where he mentioned being crucified with Christ.” Today he talks about “the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” Another such statement is,“For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13).
These are just a few of the life and death matters that Paul talks about on his Christian journey. In his contemplations he seems to be reasoning according to the law of physics, that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. So he must give way to Christ’s agenda for his life. In other words, he must decrease so that Christ may increase!
It is not hard to conclude that Paul had a mighty large ego. We just read about it in his boasting in our last devotional. But after Paul stopped kicking against the goads and surrendered to the will of God, he was convinced that nothing that he had boasted about in the past was worth anything, in comparison to what he would gain in a relationship with Christ, by getting to know Him!
His knowledge of the law, and his being, “faultless” in keeping it as he claimed (sounds like the rich young ruler), could not give him eternal life. Our best is as “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6), so there is no merit to be had.
Therefore, Paul concluded that by the grace of God, he would let go of eveything that he believed was anything, “that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.”
That is the best decision that any of us can make,
We will have another conversation about Paul!