“More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.”
Philippians 3:8 (NASB)
Paul’s strong words compare the great value of knowing Christ, to his loss of all things. For Paul, to know Christ far outweighed the value of perishable things, which he declared to be rubbish in comparison.
A secular author once wrote that ‘life is a process of storms and rebuilding, of fires and regrowth, of loss and gain.’ It’s a principle that is echoed throughout scripture, like the story of Job, who lost everything except his faith, in declaring that it all came from God in the first place.
Jesus told us to value the eternal treasures, not the perishable ones. John the Baptist, had one single garment of camel’s fur to wear, ate locusts and honey, and preached about the coming Messiah and His kingdom. Although God called him to a special but peculiar mission, Jesus said that John was greater than any human person who lived. (Luke 7:28)
If John was the greatest example of a human person, then that greatness had to be in his detachment from things. Maybe Jesus was saying that there are things we need to be detached from, and we need reminders to think a little more like John, or like Job, who said that everything he lost belonged to God, or Paul, who referred to ‘things’ as mere rubbish compared to the rich value of knowing Christ.
A friend who works as a dog sitter for wealthy people in California came into town for a brief visit. We went to dinner this week and she mainly talked about the beautiful ocean front mansions in the Laguna area she works in. She went on and on about where she would buy a home if she ever won the lottery.
I told her about a resident at the Nursing home, who plays the lottery every day. He has won several times, sometimes hundreds, a few times in the thousands, but never millions. He lives there due to chronic heart failure, and carries a wearable defibrillator, which goes with him everywhere. As long as his vitals are good, he is permitted to take walks to the grocery store where he buys more lottery tickets.
He is a good man, very kind and generous, with no family, but made me think of how easy it is to become obsessed with money since it buys so much in this world. He showed me his last winning ticket for $550 and I thought to myself, what if that really was his ‘last’ ticket. An attachment to money is one of those perishable treasures which Jesus warned us about.
God gives us opportunities to rethink our priorities, to rebuild and grow after making mistakes or suffering a loss, but it’s easier to rebuild and be restored when we are detached from the perishable things of this world, and choose to be more attached to the eternal ones.
Threshing wheat is a process of detaching the straw like chaff from the nutritious wheat kernal. When we place more value on the things treasured in heaven, we are like the wheat kernal, detaching ourselves from the chaff and investing in something eternal.
The loved ones we have lost are also treasures that last forever.
We wouldn’t be the person we are today without the people we have known, loved and lost in our lives. They not only live forever in heaven but have left a part of themselves in our hearts, like a last winning ticket to inspire us to keep seeking eternal rewards, until we meet again.
Lord, help us to detach ourselves from chaff, and seek imperishable treasures, by valuing the winning tickets of virtue that bring the eternal rewards in heaven. Amen
