Lord, I pray that through these devotions you would reveal yourself to us in a deeper way. That we would become full of love and be as children wanting more then anything to spend time at your feet, listening to your words. Set your seal upon our hearts, kiss us with your word, and give us a revelation of your Son, Jesus. AMEN.
God has moved powerfully in my heart since I have been confronted by new revelation of His desire for intimacy with me. Now I feel totally ruined to what the world has to offer. Paul said in Gal. 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” We are bondservants bought with a price. We are not our own. We can say, “Master, what would you have me to do?” However, He is more than Master; He is also our Bridegroom! My love for Jesus and my desire to please the Bridegroom is why I live and move and have my being. Therefore I desire to come out of my comfort zone; I desire to be a partaker in His sufferings.
Paul says, “whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.”
I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ…I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death (Phil 3:7-10). What did Paul call garbage? He says in the prior verses; his education, his good family name, his good record of character, and his place of leadership and high standing in society just to name a few. WHY?
Paul had a revelation of the power of making personal sacrifices for that priceless relationship with Jesus. The giving up of legitimate earthly pleasures for intimacy with Jesus. Psalm 27:4 says “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.” Read Phil. 3:10-11 again, “Now I have given up everything else – I have found it to be the only way to really know Jesus and to experience the mighty power that brought Him back to life again, and to find out what it means to suffer and to die with Him. So, whatever it takes, I will be one who lives in the fresh newness of life of those who are alive from the dead.”
