To Live is Christ and to Die is Gain
I am now finally starting to understand what Paul meant when he said,
"To die is gain". Yep, I now know a little better what this means. To be with Jesus and His Father, my Lord (they are one and the same, but our minds cannot comprehend this so God has given us a metaphor that our little brains can hold a bit better) is the sweetest of all joys. It is full and overflowing life. It is everlasting peace. And if He is this beautiful here on earth, how much more so will He be when there is no longer a veil in between us? How much more will I love to be in His presence?
Yes, to die will be the greatest of all gains. It is when the last curtain of separation between me and my God is finally parted, and I will see Him face to face. Yes, I definitely am starting to get that part of the verse. The first part is a littler harder though.
To live is Christ. Now what does that mean? Well, Jesus was God in the flesh. He was the picture of righteousness. He was the greatest gift God could have given to mankind, because he showed us exactly what righteousness, walked out on the sinful earth, looked like.
So to fully live here on the earth, in preparation of the day when we stand face to face with our Creator, we live as he lived.
Wow. How good is that? It's like God himself looked down on the earth and saw that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing, how utterly clueless we were about to how to live this life, and he came down here himself and showed us how to do it! It's like he shrunk himself as small as he could possibly get, and then wrapped himself in our human flesh (a disgusting thing for God to willingly put on by the way. He has way better outfits he could have picked from) and then walked around with us, in our filth. It's like he said, "Here, my children, look at me. This is the way you do it. This is how you really live! I know it's been so hard for you to figure out how to do this whole thing and so I'll make this as easy as I possibly can for you. All you have to do it Just Follow Me."
That's why Jesus is the only Way. The path to God. The one we follow. Because he was God walking around in our shoes. And as both God and Man, he had the perfect perspective on this whole situation we now find ourselves in. As God, he knew what righteousness was and exactly how humans were meant to be from the Beginning. And as Man, he knew our pain and our sorrows and exactly what it would cost us to live the way we were meant to live in this fallen and corrupt generation. He knows exactly how difficult it will be.
But because he did it himself, he now turns back around to us and says, "Follow me."
That's why to live is Christ. To live the way we were meant to live is to follow in the footsteps of our God and to do exactly what he did.
And what was that? Here it is. This is how our God lived while on the earth. This is the Way:
Here are the footsteps he left for us to walk in:
(the hardest and most fulfilling 3 step program you'll ever follow by the way)
1. Humble yourself and make yourself nothing. Stop thinking this whole thing is about you. It's not about you. It's about God. And all his other children he deeply loves here on this earth who need to know that He does in fact love them.
2. Take on the very nature of a servant. When people ask you who you are, be able to say this and only this: "I am a servant." You are a servant. Your identity is not in what you have or who you know or what hobbies you fill your free time with but in how well you serve God by serving His children ("Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." Matt 25:40). And Jesus even laid out exactly how to do this in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7). In the end, it always comes down to our hearts. Are we loving people and serving them from our hearts?
3. Become obedient all the way to death - even if it's death on a cross. We obey our heavenly Father in heaven all the way up to death. If he says, "Die for me my child", we say, "Yes, Lord, I will die for you. You are the prize of greatest price and my life is worth far less than the gift of your love for me!" Because "greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for ones friends" John 15:13.
Basically, all these things boil down to this: "Stop trying to look out for 'number 1', and turn your heart to me, the one who made you. Love me. And do this by loving my children on this earth and by obeying every command I give you - even if it means dying for me."
That's it. This is the way to live the full life. And it's probably why most people choose a wider, easier path. And only few ever find this one. It's very narrow and incredibly easy to miss. And even if you happen upon it in the woods, you probably wouldn't dare to go down it - it looks terrifying. (Matthew 7:13-14)
And yet Jesus is standing at the far end of it and he's looking back to us (both those who are struggling along the path and maybe beginning to wander from it and those who are peering down it from the beginning and wondering if it's worth the risk) and he's saying to us,
The offer has been made. You are standing at the entrance of the path to life - full life. Now you must decide whether you will walk down it.
Paul decided to say yes. Although God told Ananias before he went and prayed for Paul that He was going to show Paul just how many things he was going to have to suffer for His name sake (Acts 9:16), Paul still said yes to the Lord. God made him the same offer as he makes to us, "follow me even unto death", and Paul chose to say yes.
And he suffered terribly for it. But you would hardly know it from his letters. Far from sounding like the sorrow-filled cries for help you would expect from a man who was beaten and nearly killed on a regular basis, these letters are the words of a man in love. Many people have said that Paul wrote as a "stream of consciousness", just going on and on, sometimes barely stopping to take a breath. He could hardly keep it all in!
It's because he had willingly emptied himself as the Lord had told him to...and God had filled him back up so full he could hardly contain himself!
And at the end of his life, after he had walk the small and narrow path of humility and servanthood and obedience of Jesus, this is the verdict he gave his life. This is his evaluation of this way of living:
Yes, to live is to be like my Jesus whom I love with all my heart. And to die is to be with him forever - which is the greatest prize of all. Lord! Help me to follow you to the end so I may gain the crown of righteousness and join your saint before your throne!
"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21).
"To die is gain". Yep, I now know a little better what this means. To be with Jesus and His Father, my Lord (they are one and the same, but our minds cannot comprehend this so God has given us a metaphor that our little brains can hold a bit better) is the sweetest of all joys. It is full and overflowing life. It is everlasting peace. And if He is this beautiful here on earth, how much more so will He be when there is no longer a veil in between us? How much more will I love to be in His presence?
Yes, to die will be the greatest of all gains. It is when the last curtain of separation between me and my God is finally parted, and I will see Him face to face. Yes, I definitely am starting to get that part of the verse. The first part is a littler harder though.
To live is Christ. Now what does that mean? Well, Jesus was God in the flesh. He was the picture of righteousness. He was the greatest gift God could have given to mankind, because he showed us exactly what righteousness, walked out on the sinful earth, looked like.
So to fully live here on the earth, in preparation of the day when we stand face to face with our Creator, we live as he lived.
Wow. How good is that? It's like God himself looked down on the earth and saw that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing, how utterly clueless we were about to how to live this life, and he came down here himself and showed us how to do it! It's like he shrunk himself as small as he could possibly get, and then wrapped himself in our human flesh (a disgusting thing for God to willingly put on by the way. He has way better outfits he could have picked from) and then walked around with us, in our filth. It's like he said, "Here, my children, look at me. This is the way you do it. This is how you really live! I know it's been so hard for you to figure out how to do this whole thing and so I'll make this as easy as I possibly can for you. All you have to do it Just Follow Me."
That's why Jesus is the only Way. The path to God. The one we follow. Because he was God walking around in our shoes. And as both God and Man, he had the perfect perspective on this whole situation we now find ourselves in. As God, he knew what righteousness was and exactly how humans were meant to be from the Beginning. And as Man, he knew our pain and our sorrows and exactly what it would cost us to live the way we were meant to live in this fallen and corrupt generation. He knows exactly how difficult it will be.
But because he did it himself, he now turns back around to us and says, "Follow me."
That's why to live is Christ. To live the way we were meant to live is to follow in the footsteps of our God and to do exactly what he did.
And what was that? Here it is. This is how our God lived while on the earth. This is the Way:
"[Jesus] who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!" Philippians 2:6-8
Here are the footsteps he left for us to walk in:
(the hardest and most fulfilling 3 step program you'll ever follow by the way)
1. Humble yourself and make yourself nothing. Stop thinking this whole thing is about you. It's not about you. It's about God. And all his other children he deeply loves here on this earth who need to know that He does in fact love them.
2. Take on the very nature of a servant. When people ask you who you are, be able to say this and only this: "I am a servant." You are a servant. Your identity is not in what you have or who you know or what hobbies you fill your free time with but in how well you serve God by serving His children ("Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." Matt 25:40). And Jesus even laid out exactly how to do this in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7). In the end, it always comes down to our hearts. Are we loving people and serving them from our hearts?
3. Become obedient all the way to death - even if it's death on a cross. We obey our heavenly Father in heaven all the way up to death. If he says, "Die for me my child", we say, "Yes, Lord, I will die for you. You are the prize of greatest price and my life is worth far less than the gift of your love for me!" Because "greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for ones friends" John 15:13.
Basically, all these things boil down to this: "Stop trying to look out for 'number 1', and turn your heart to me, the one who made you. Love me. And do this by loving my children on this earth and by obeying every command I give you - even if it means dying for me."
That's it. This is the way to live the full life. And it's probably why most people choose a wider, easier path. And only few ever find this one. It's very narrow and incredibly easy to miss. And even if you happen upon it in the woods, you probably wouldn't dare to go down it - it looks terrifying. (Matthew 7:13-14)
And yet Jesus is standing at the far end of it and he's looking back to us (both those who are struggling along the path and maybe beginning to wander from it and those who are peering down it from the beginning and wondering if it's worth the risk) and he's saying to us,
"Come to me! Come to me all you who are weary and tired and laid down with all those religious rules and traditions and luggage! All you who are heavily burdened and almost out of strength! Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Here's my yoke; try it on! It doesn't look like it, but this yoke I'm giving you is truly easy to carry. And this burden will be light on your back.
And don't worry about how it looks, beloved one. From the outside it does look like death and a cross and pain and suffering. And it is true that death must come before there is life. But once you decide to put it on, no matter how scary and painful it looks, you will find that it is so very light and easy and a joy to carry! But you're going to have to trust me beloved! I love you! Trust me! I. Love. You. So. Much. Trust me when I say, this is the only way! The good way, the right way! Follow me, beloved, and I will lead your soul to rest."
Paul decided to say yes. Although God told Ananias before he went and prayed for Paul that He was going to show Paul just how many things he was going to have to suffer for His name sake (Acts 9:16), Paul still said yes to the Lord. God made him the same offer as he makes to us, "follow me even unto death", and Paul chose to say yes.
And he suffered terribly for it. But you would hardly know it from his letters. Far from sounding like the sorrow-filled cries for help you would expect from a man who was beaten and nearly killed on a regular basis, these letters are the words of a man in love. Many people have said that Paul wrote as a "stream of consciousness", just going on and on, sometimes barely stopping to take a breath. He could hardly keep it all in!
It's because he had willingly emptied himself as the Lord had told him to...and God had filled him back up so full he could hardly contain himself!
And at the end of his life, after he had walk the small and narrow path of humility and servanthood and obedience of Jesus, this is the verdict he gave his life. This is his evaluation of this way of living:
"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day - and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing." (2 Timothy 4:7-8)
Those are not the words of a man who regrets the struggles he has walked through. Those are not the words of a man who is tired and on the verge of giving up. Those are the words of a man satisfied. He is a soldier who has fought hell itself and has won. He is a runner who has run the race of all races, and has not only finished, but has won! And he is a prince about to receive his crown.
Yes, to live is to be like my Jesus whom I love with all my heart. And to die is to be with him forever - which is the greatest prize of all. Lord! Help me to follow you to the end so I may gain the crown of righteousness and join your saint before your throne!
Thank you. I needed that today,
ReplyDeleteMe too. :) Love you so much Auntie! We're gonna make it all the way to the top. He is faithful.
ReplyDelete