The Surpassing Greatness of Knowing Christ

John 12:25
The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
 
Mark 8:34-35
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
 
Philippians 3:8-11
…I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
 
 
Confession:  I love my life. 
 
I love my wife, our great kids, my job, our church, our home, this beautiful place we live in, my chickens, my garden, my bees, my bike, our steady and generous incomes, our good health.  We’re surrounded by friends we love and who love us.  I love it all!  Love it, love it, love it!  I consider all these things as gifts from the good hand of God.  He has poured out his favor on my family.  He has been so generous and kind to me.  Things are truly “better than I deserve.”  I know I could lose any or all of it in a moment, and that makes me all the more grateful.
 
But the verses above remind me that I’m in dangerous territory.  I have been tempted to love the gifts more than the Giver.  I have delighted in things that are passing away and have been distracted from the greatest Treasure of all—knowing and loving Jesus.  I have often given my heart to things of lesser value. 

The Lord is teaching me that it’s hard to hold onto him when my arms are full of the gifts he has given me.   They are good things, but compared to knowing him and loving him better, they are rubbish. 
 
My home--rubbish!
My hobbies--rubbish!
My health--rubbish!
My work—rubbish!
My stuff—rubbish!
My security—rubbish!
 
My family and friend relationships—it hurts me to say it, but it’s true—compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, it’s all rubbish.
 
May the Lord teach us to love only him and to lay down even his gifts in order to embrace him more fully.
 
Now where did I put that cross?
 
 
Brian