“But even beyond that, I consider everything a loss in comparison with the superior value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have lost everything for him, but what I lost I think of as sewer trash, so that I might gain Christ.”
~Philippians 3:8 (CEB).
How does the Christian fare with loss? Well, grief is the common response, but afterwards something else is possibly seen; God making meaning out of such death-felt experience.
The typical Christian — you and I — do not react like Paul has above unless we’re blessed in the Spirit to receive such unconventional wisdom, which is insight beyond anything this regular world can understand.
How else could we seriously consider everything we’ve lost as “sewer trash” on account, only, of Christ? (I believe I could get some bad press simply because I ask such a question.)
When We’re Sick ‘n’ Tired of Being Sick ‘n’ Tired – Then There is Christ
It is commonplace for a person to come to an end of themselves — especially those given to excess.
It’s easy to see what we gain for trashing our losses from this viewpoint. Everything is loss anyway. To go with God is the straightest path to gain, and the sort of gain is very specifically personal.
More people than we realise have gotten to the point of giving up on an old way of living. The pain of staying the same overwhelms us, when the pain of going with Jesus is awkward and possibly slighting, but revelatory and peace-bringing — no exaggeration, it’s new life!
When We Have It All – Then Lose It – Then Too is Christ
Many people have lost insurmountably.
Their loss(es) cannot be measured, let alone reconciled in the world’s terms. For these losses there is a God who gives empathy beyond empathy. When the words — and every emotion under the sun — give no meaning to the crushing pain, then there is God eternal.
This Jesus suffered and is best known and remembered for that fact; beyond wisdom teaching, parables, courageous acts and miracles.
Whenever We Contemplate Life – All Else – Nothing Comes Close to Christ
Building to the crescendo, then, here it is. Life: with or without the Saviour?
With Jesus we have everything; without him, nothing — nothing here and nothing in eternity.
All else is stripped away and worthless and barren.
This may seem like a rash hyperbole. It isn’t, because of the facts of life that bear themselves in every fact. We live in a created world, where everything that is, was created; even to the notions of thought, wisdom, love and every other thing.
Everything that is, was created by a Creator.
Jesus was in Creation, and remains to be, as all are subsumed in that Creation. Come to know this, now, before more of death is experienced for life.
© 2011 S. J. Wickham.
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