Day 10: To live is Christ and to die is gain

My young adult group at church has been studying Philippians with Matt Chandler. It's been a completely refreshing perspective and I've felt he teaches in a way that clearly gives us opportunity to take things away and apply them to our lives.

This past week has been every kind of stressful you can imagine. Put this fast, extra-curricular activities and the promise to write to you all as often as possible on top of it, needless to say I sleep pretty hard. Last Thursday (and yes I'm just getting to writing about it today), our study reminded me of why I feel that this mutiny against excess is so important to my walk with God. It was complete confirmation that I had made the right choice in doing this fast, and it was encouragement that the end goal will be worth the issues it is creating in my immediate existence.

Here is what we studied and the notes I took:

Philippians 3:7-12
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, 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 is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 

In Phil 3, Paul intensely outlines the reasons to pursue Christ and then how to pursue Him.

We pursue Him because we are broken people with issues in our lives that will never be able to be fixed with any earthly effort.

In our darkest moment, in our deepest sin, God chose us. Cool thing is...there is never a day that we don't fall short, yet He still wants us to chase after Him! God rescues the dirty to the praise of His glorious grace. What do we have in our lives that is blocking us from pursuing him?

We are imperfect people chosen by a perfect God, our priority should lie with pursuing Him. Nothing can compare to the riches of His grace!

To live is Christ and to die is gain. Amen.