Rubbish

“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”

Philippians 3:8

            I can remember when I was a little girl, staring up at a poster of names of Jesus. Not all His names, mind you, but a lot of them, at least, to a little girl they were a lot. In those younger, innocent days, I wanted to study every one of them. I wanted to know Jesus in every aspect of His name. Then I got older and distracted. The frame on the poster broke and it sat between the wall and the couch for who knows how long. I heaped up for myself work and school, this and that and eventually forgot about the names of Jesus. Now I’m in NoWhere, Montana with nothing to grab my focus except Christ. Actually, in one of our classes we are reading through the life of Christ and writing down the names/attributes of Jesus. Often times the whiteboard is completely filled. Funny how the past comes back to haunt you. J

            Derailing from that train of thought for a moment, it’s not that the things that distracted me were bad necessarily, although I certainly added plenty of “bad” to my list of things to do. Regardless, they were distractions, distractions from the best thing, distractions from Jesus. In the vast scheme of things, they were rubbish.

           

            “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of ME. And he who loves son or daughter more than ME is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.” Matthew 10:37-38

            God doesn’t want us to not love people. On the contrary, He commands it! Not only are we called to love people but our enemies, no less. But if we love people more than we love God, um, that we’re going to have a problem. Counting those things as rubbish, we hold them loosely, not counting them worthy to get between us and the Lord.

            But when those things are laid down at the feet of Jesus, He blesses us more than we would ever imagine. He restored to Job wealth and family. He will restore to us in the ways we’d never suspect. But more than that, we gain Christ. He is the prize. He is the pearl of great price. He is the treasure that we seek. And as we gaze into His face, all the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Application: Today I will make a list of 3 things that I am holding onto and lay them down at the foot of the cross.