COUNTING THE COST (PHILIPPIANS 3:8)

I count everything as loss compared to the priceless privilege, the overwhelming preciousness and surpassing worth, of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish, refuse and dregs, in order that I may gain Christ. What a standard of spiritual excellence Paul sets for the saints!!!

We know from scripture Paul’s life was filled with much affliction, adversity and suffering, for he “bore in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus”, “filling up in his flesh the afflictions of Christ.” He learned to be content in need and hardship, peaceful in distress, and joyful in suffering. Here he reveals his utter rejection of the world – the good life now syndrome – and Self’s desire to dominate.

In Phil 3:1-16, Paul uses himself as an example to warn the saints against misplaced confidence in or dependence on the privileges or advantages of one’s “flesh”, one’s natural life. “For whom I have suffered the loss of all things” (vs. 8) refers to the life of wealth, power, prominence, privilege and culture which Paul, as a citizen of Tarsus, gave up on the road to Damascus, to become a poor itinerant missionary. He forfeited family, prosperity, social position, security, the prestige of learning under the tutelage of the great Gamaliel at the Jewish School of Theology at Jerusalem, and the most coveted career as an up an coming Pharisee, which had been the focus, purpose and training of his entire life. He forfeited all that he had held dear for what? “That I may win Christ.” Paul appropriated into his life the perfection, the purposes, the graces and the fragrance of the Person of Christ, through daily visits to the cross, counting everything else as dung, that he might progressive gain Christ... growing in Christlikeness. His insatiable hunger for more of Christ is elaborated on in the remaining verses: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” This is the heart rendering cry of Paul, the humble vagabond still pursuing, still willing to forsake all, to give up everything of this life to gain the Pearl of Great Price, to gain the Treasure in the Field, to die to Self and submit to the Lordship of Christ... JOYFULLY! These are the willful acts of a heart in conformation, a mind in renewal, an enslaved life with a purposeful focus on God and His Kingdom. Paul was a person of one thing!

“THAT I MAY WIN CHRIST”