Having been a ‘blameless Pharisee’
and having attained to everything in religiosity, it seems so paradoxical that the
apostle Paul is so joyous in having been stripped to nothing of everything he
had achieved in the flesh:
“I
continue to consider everything [achieved in the flesh] to be a loss for the
sake of the incomparable value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
~Philippians 3:8a (Moisés Silva)
Into life
we came with nothing,
Then we
accumulated what we had,
And before
God, we had something,
Only to
discover it makes us mad.
God saved
us to everything,
So we’d be
serenely clad,
Happy at
last with nothing,
To glory
in what makes us glad.
***
Possession is the key idea in
life. What we possess makes us who we are; what possesses us, also. Possessions
can be all sorts of things; material and immaterial.
Paul had been transformed from
being possessed by legalism to possessing something of incomparable value: the
knowledge of Christ Jesus, his Lord. Both, at their time, were of irreplaceable
value, though the former could now be seen in its proper light.
Where is the salience in this for
us? What do we possess: worldly riches of moderate means, or relatively
nothing? The Christian life is everything, especially when we have nothing
materially. But the Christian life is ever more significant for the person who
thought they had everything, materially, but now knows all they had/have was/is
a folly.
‘Everything’ Keeps Us From Christ
The enemy of God—Satan in name—has
used additions to our lives, and subtractions, to keep us from truth. Whenever
we became rich we actually became poor. And when we lost riches we became
poorer for our resentment.
Everything that can be got from
this world can hold us to a ransom against salvation.
Everything we can accumulate is a
potential barrier to the knowledge of the holy.
Whenever we think of ‘riches’ we
should think more broadly in terms of what we value. It may seem radical but
our highest goal in life is Christ. When this is true for us—when Christ has
first place in our hearts—we are thankful for every secondary
possession we have and don’t have, under God. It is to be Christ that orders
the preference of our values.
Having Nothing Yet Possessing All Things
Life can be a very disheartening thing
if we are given to comparisons regarding possession. That’s the point of the
gospel message. We are never too far from bliss.
When we count everything else a
loss in comparison with the acquisition of Jesus we realise we have everything, already. These are big words. They are
concepts that can fill our minds into eternity.
Even the least has the most.
***
Having comparatively nothing is a
great thing in the kingdom
of God. Less is more
because Satan has less to deceive us with. When Christ is first, and all else
is second, and that order is maintained, we already have everything.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
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