Profit, Loss & Righteousness

Philippians 3:7-9 with some notes in italics -

"Yet every advantage that I had gained I considered lost for Christ’s sake. Yes, and I look upon everything as loss compared with the overwhelming gain of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. For his sake I did in actual fact suffer the loss of everything, but I considered it useless rubbish compared with being able to win Christ. For now my place is in him… "

I think a lot of times we read these kind of words, are impressed by them, and yet then chalk them up to a sort of superhumanity that only the Early Church had. Don’t do that! For, in fact, Paul is then so kind as to conclude this series of thoughts with the reason by which they’re humanly possible for us: “For now my place is in him…” Paul interpreted his whole earthly life from his location “in Jesus,” from this locale of Union-with-the-God-of-the-Universe. So, in actuality, as he’s tallying up the “Profit & Loss” for his life in verses 7-8, the gains and losses are crystal clear for him. The whole economy of his life is Heavenly now; it’s easy for him to leave behind so much of what the world claims life is about…  

"…and I am not dependent upon any of the self-achieved righteousness of the Law. God has given me that genuine righteousness which comes from faith in Christ."

Do you actually believe the things that Paul is saying here? Do you hear him echoing Ephesians 1’s “in Christ we are holy and blameless children”? Too often, I think we think it’s a form of humility to always point to our sin as if that’s still the truest thing about us. Yet it’s our righteousness in Christ that actually proves the power of His incarnation, life, death, resurrection and inhabitation-of-us. Persistent agreement with our former “fallenness” tends to keep our eyes on ourselves; belief in His indwelling righteousness teaches our eyes to be on Him alone.