Turned Around

January 6

The dissertation of Paul in Philippians 3:7-9 is the affirmation of a man who has turned his life around. Where once he had temporal goals at the heart of his being, he now had a totally spiritual orientation. There was nothing that he once held dear that he had not totally abandoned. There was nothing regarding Jesus that he once scorned that he had not come to embrace.

He said of himself, “Whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. I consider everything I gained to be loss compared to the surpassing greatness of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for Whose sake I have lost all things and count them but dung that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.

“I have no righteousness of my own through obedience to the law; I have only the righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus. It is the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.” When Paul’s dark eyes were opened, when he could see the squalor of his own goodness, he embraced the One whose pure life enabled Him to place a robe of righteousness upon those who believe Him.

When Paul’s eyes were opened to behold the glory of the Holy One whose life, death and resurrection had the power to transform an ordinary flawed man from sinner to saint, he received the Gift that made all things new—that made him a man of passion for the Lord—the Gift that made him a man who had gained Christ and thereby gained the treasure of eternal life.