Philippians 3:8-9 Notes
“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith ~”
As I move on to memorizing the verses above, Ralph A. Herring’s words in Studies in Philippians are settling in my heart.
He says,
“{Paul} underscores it all by reference to his own experience, stating that he has stood the loss and found the gain and is more delighted with the results. To Paul, Christ makes all the difference in the world. No one who has laid down all things for Christ ever seemed dissatisfied with the exchange. On the contrary, those who have done seemed possessed of a joy unknown to others.”
and
“Our safety lies in our position in Christ, but our fruitfulness lies in the extent to which Christ is in us.”
But what does that look like, as a woman following Jesus, when one is in the middle of deep pain?
I’ve taken up journaling again, trying again after decades of stops and starts - wishing that I had kept better record of the years that we have gone through. Jesus has used them to form and shape not only my heart and life, but the life of my children, my husband, and yet, how quickly one can forget the lessons learned.
I want the substance - not the vague memories that can make things foggy and distant.
Someone asked Tony and I this past week on the day that he turned 50 if our years in the inner-city felt like another lifetime…and in a sense, yes. In a sense, no. Every day I come face to face with a reaction in the eyes or heart of the ones I love that I know, that I know, that I know is there because of our years on 4th Street. I can feel, in those moments, so many different emotions…but none of them are angry. Do I wish that somethings could have been different? Yes. But God placed us there. He saved me there. He protected us there. And He led us out with a firm hand from there.
So I am grateful.
He did it again as we navigated the Covid years, the Moscow years…each time He led us clearly both to and from where we were.
And what did that teach me? It taught me the truth of the verses above. Paul could point to his pristine lineage in the people of Israel, his pedigree, his zeal for purity, his passion for righteousness and the law…but all of that, in light of Jesus Christ, was counted as rubbish.
On a much smaller scale, I can point to each house, each ministry, each position and community and say firmly that “losing” it all - as painful and confusing as it could be at times, I learned there, in those hard moments, that what I gained in Christ surpassed anything I could have imagined.
If losing what I thought mattered means that I am brought closer to my Heavenly Father, if learning to surrender to His leading by taking up my cross daily means that I lean closer to the heart of my Savior, if losing comfort and ease means that I become a branch utterly dependent on The Vine, then I open my hands to depend on Him and His righteousness, believing by faith that His joy will continue to bear His fruit in me.
