Counting all things as loss for His sake

I believe God gave me a great sense of perspective this morning as I worked through my Bible study lesson. We are studying the fruit of the spirit via a Beth Moore study called "Living Beyond Yourself" and are examining gentleness.

I read and reflected on Acts 9:1-16. Beth asked some insightful questions--the answers to which are relevant to our lives as we prepare to move overseas. In verses 1 & 4, we first see that Christ's attitude toward Christians being persecuted is that anything done to a Christian is done to Jesus. Thus, Jesus was/is intensely involved in situations concerning persecution of Christians. In verse 16, Jesus tells Paul that He is going to show Paul how much he must suffer for Christ's sake. I don't know exactly how Jesus showed Paul this, but we see evidence throughout the new testament that Paul was willing to suffer for His name's sake. As I looked at 2 Cor 6:4-5 and 11:24-28, I was reminded of how much Paul suffered: through beatings, imprisonment, hunger, sleeplessness, dangers of all kinds, shipwrecked 3 times, exposed to cold, 5 times he received 39 lashes, 3 times he was beaten with rods, once he was stoned and eventually beheaded by Nero (we think). Wow, what a list!

Then, I read Philippians 3:3-11 and thought about how Paul considered all his losses and sufferings as gain because knowing Jesus was/is worth it (my paraphrase). He wanted the world to know Jesus so badly that he submitted to sufferings because "the end justified the means"--the "end" is all the world knowing Jesus. Paul counted everything that could have been to his own gain as rubbish so that "he may gain Christ and my be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." (verses 7-11)

Would I have heard the Gospel had Paul not been willing to submit to God's will? God, in His sovereignty, would have accomplished His will regardless of Paul's obedience, but scripture shows me that Paul was more than blessed to be used as God used him, despite his sufferings.

I want to love Jesus like Paul loved Him. I want to be willing to submit to anything God calls me to submit to so that others may know Him. I want to understand the depth of our need for a Redeemer like Paul understood it. I have a long way to go in "counting all things as loss for the sake of Christ." It would be a good start for me to count some things as loss for the sake of Christ. I am encouraged that the God of Paul is also my God and that Paul's Savior is also my Savior.