Hopefully you can pause and read Philippians 3:1-14, the account of a transformed heart which is God’s good and perfect intention on earth as it is in heaven.
In this passage we see the words; losses, gains, counting. Why is an apostle using the words of an accountant? In Luke 14:25-35, Jesus tells us that we must all do some critical math in calculating the cost of following Him. In today’s scriptures, the Spirit gives us a peak into Paul’s heart. We get to see how he processed Jesus’ command and how the accounting within his own heart worked itself out.
Why did the Spirit include in scripture such a transparent view of Paul? Was it to just reveal Paul’s heart as an exception; a bar set so high that it could only be cleared by one with apostolic muscle? I don’t think so. I believe Paul’s heart is intended as a reference point for all Christ’s followers. The apostle’s story (like our own) is intended to be a catalyst to others as we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling and move toward our destiny as those who are being transformed into His image.
Paul’s pre-Christ balance sheet was loaded with what he had thought were strong spiritual assets: He was a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin; He was a Pharisee who was flawless regrading Law-based righteousness; He was a persecutor of the church. But somehow Paul’s balance sheet had flip flopped! Whatever he had experienced since those days as a Pharisee had undercut the value of his former assets. They had become (in his counting) worth less than nothing. It was as though he had experienced a joyful sort of bankruptcy, suffering the loss of all things. The passage reveals that Paul could not have been more pleased with his windfall outcome – Jesus Christ.
With Christ Himself as his only remaining asset, Paul has become a reference point of transformation capable of assisting us in the calculations we each must make. What do you think had happened in Paul’s experience that transformed him from proud pharisee to the profoundly grateful chief of sinners? What events and processes took place that left Christ as the sole asset on Paul’s balance sheet? Just how had God brought about this transformation?
If we are making claims on the name of Jesus, the calculation Jesus instructs us to make must eventually include question like these; “In what ways has my own heart been transformed? Do our stories reveal the process God uses, which causes us to become less and less while He becomes more an more? When I stand before Him and the books are opened, will Jesus appear as my sole asset? As Lord, have I given Him ongoing access to the asset column of my heart?
Note; If you have believed that God held Paul’s heart, in its apostolic-ness, to higher standards than he does our own, please read verses 15-21. Also note the consequence for those who had replaced the cross with their own preferences.
Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained. Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
Father, on that day when you ask us to give You an accounting of our own hearts, may our books be in order – where our righteousness is that which comes from you on the basis of faith, and that like Paul, You alone are our treasure. May we encounter You in our circumstances and may we see Your strong loving heart’s efforts to transform us and to reveal Christ to us and though us. May Your eyes soon see Your Bride pressing on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Amen.