The surpassing worth of knowing Christ

My dad has a farm house, there are many olive trees, so when the olives are ready we collect them and bring them to a place where they have a cold press. The olives in fact get pressed and become olive oil, a wonderful olive oil. Why am I talking about olives? Well the passage in Philippians 3:1-11 reminds me of this image. Let’s look at it together.

In these verses Paul is facing a problem and at the same time giving a solution. The problem is that there were false teachers trying to tell the Philippian church that they needed to be circumcised in order to be real christians. This meant being saved by works, Paul wants them to understand that we are saved only through  Christ’s sacrifice and faith in Him.

Paul gives his lesson with two important points:

- Look at what I consider loss

- Look at what I consider gain

Look at what I consider loss - Paul gives his testimony and in the first point lists the things that in the past were important to him when he used to think he could gain peace with God by his own works. He lists the fact that he was a real Jew, and observed the Law to the letter, he was blameless, he lived trying to achieve righteousness by human efforts. But he considered all these things as loss. Why?

Look at what I consider gain - Because now he had met Christ face to face and realized that he cannot have peace with God by his own works. Only divine righteousness can give him true peace. So now for him is important to be found in Christ by Christ’s righteousness. This is what is important, and because of this he wants to know Christ more, live for him, suffer as he did, die for him...Paul can’t wait for the day of resurrection when salvation will be complete. 

So in these verses we see that the most important thing for Paul is to know Christ and live for Him. When we read his letter, when we look at his life and the way he lived it, there is only one thing that comes out of it: Jesus! Is it the same for you? Do you live wanting to know your Savior more and more? To live for Him and die for Him? My encouragement for you is that Christ can be the most important “thing” in your life like He was for Paul.