Philippians 3: I Once Thought
Consider: Philippians 3:4-11
This passage of Scripture is very challenging. Paul starts off by letting us know who he was and details about his life that were very important to him.
Some of those things were:
- He was born into a “pure-blood” Jewish family, that is a branch of the tribe of Benjamin
- He was circumcised when he was 8 days old (a big deal!)
- He was a Pharisee
- Zealous for his faith
- He obeyed the Jewish law so carefully that he was never accused of thought
All of those things sound fine… right? Wrong.
Once Jesus came into the picture, he let’s us know in verse 7 “I once though all these things were very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.”
Here we have another challenge to examine the “stuff” in our lives.
From the list Paul gave, nothing could have been considered “sin”. So when it came to him giving up those things… he wasn’t doing it just to get sin out of his life. He did it because He realized Jesus wanted to change everything, not just the “sin areas” in his life.
Relationship with Jesus is about a complete life change, not us just coming to the point of staying away from sin and waiting for our entry to Heaven. There may be things in our lives, not necessarily sin, but when it comes to Jesus and knowing Him, those things are worthless… and it could be He’s wanting us to give up those things.
Jesus is into new. He is into change. He loves to do both in our lives… in ALL of our lives.
Recent Comments