Smeagol is Free!
A hermitudinal view of...stuff...


5.18.2005  

No Loss

Philippians 3:7 - 11
But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 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 may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

On the drive over to his place, Scott asked me how I was doing. One of the things I told him was that I'd been reading through Philippians, and that reading about the gospel of Christ that is so richly portrayed there has been a refreshing endeavor. The gospel hasn't seemed this fresh in a long while; to be honest, my heart's been too numb to really react to it. Engaging with and being changed by the truth of the gospel is something must be a daily process. What is frustrating is going through those seasons when the beauty of the cross seems difficult to apprehend, let alone comprehend, or when the brightly shining glory of Christ becomes too powerful to gaze upon from the depths of my sinful heart. It's times like these, times when I don't want to be honest with myself, that I toss aside the eternal for the temporal and neglect to count all as loss for Christ's sake.

I was asked just a little while ago how my semester had been. I responded with a "nyeerrrrhhhuuuuhhhhhrrrrrrmmmbleh." That was my way of indicating that my semester was just so-so. But now that I think about it, that's not the case at all. "To live is Christ, to die is gain...I have been crucified with Christ...it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me...He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you holy and blameless and beyond reproach...for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God...the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." Sure, the semester was hard. Sure, I felt like my heart had gone sour at times and I ended the year on a tough note. So what? That's what life in Christ is like at times. That doesn't negate the fact that there's a far greater, a far more glorious reality that still governs me. That reality is that Christ lives in me, and I in Him. Why? Because He died with me, and I with Him.

It's hard to remember that. I'm praying that this summer, the Lord will bring the truth of the gospel to fruition within my heart in a way that...well...would be exceedingly glorifying to His name. That sounds so bible-college to me, yet I really can't put that prayer any other way. What else could I want? Anything less than God's glory simply will not do. Why would I want to savor the work of God in my life if I did not see that it glorified Him? Such savoring would not truly be savoring.

posted by Bolo | 12:33 AM
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