I Count All Things of This World to be Loss!
Phil 3:8
“More than that I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish so that I might gain Christ.”
This is strong verbiage for us, as Americans, who look like spoiled brats to the rest of the world. The loss of all things is outside of our wheelhouse of contemplation. Even the poor among us are richer than most people from other nations in the world. Our insatiable desire to have what we can’t afford has 85% of household in the U.S. in credit card debt of $20,000 or more and many of us are 90 days outside of bankruptcy. Suffer the loss of all things, I don’t think so! This passage of Scripture is foreign to the American way of life, but should it be for those of us who follow Christ?
A Divine Revelation
Christian households are among that 85% statistic and many of us, as believers, live no different than the world does. Sadly, due to excessive debt, our budgets are too tight to tithe even a small percentage of our income. So, many of us forgo giving to our church altogether. Why has acquiring things or debt become a problem for us? Maybe it’s because we, as believers, have underestimated the value of knowing Christ Jesus. Could we boldly say that we would “suffer the loss of all things and truly count them but rubbish so that we might gain Christ”, as Paul did? Have we acquired so much that if we were required to suffer the loss of all things, we would decline, like the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-22, and miss the opportunity of knowing Christ altogether? I hope not!!
A Divine Challenge
I don’t know about you, but this strikes a major chord of conviction in me. Beloved, there may be a time coming very soon when you and I will be tested in this arena. The challenge of Paul, “Whatever things were gain to me, those things I count as loss” is before us. If what we possess would get in the way of our relationship with Christ, then maybe it’s time to GET RID OF IT. If we are in debt, Proverbs 22:7 says, “The borrower becomes the lender’s slave.” and Romans 13:8 says, “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.” So, we need to do all that we can to get out of debt because the only one we’re to be indebted to is Christ.
God’s recipe for satisfaction in this world is to “Delight yourself in Him and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Unfortunately for some, that has become the sole reason to ‘delight yourself in Him.’ Yet that is not the meaning of this verse. This actually is a cause-and-effect verse that supports what Paul is saying in Philippians 3:8. If we delight in Him, we will discover that knowing Christ satisfies the deepest desire of our hearts far better than anything this world has to offer.
Call to Action
When we truly understand the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord, then we will say what the Psalmist said in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want.”
Father, only You can truly satisfy the desires of our heart. Help us to understand that the pleasures/things of this world are only temporal, but the things of the kingdom are eternal. When we do, the things of this earth will become rubbish in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen!