Read · Philippians 3:1–11

Read the whole passage again today, and read verses 4 through 8 slowly.

Everything in this passage turns on one word, and the word is consider.

01 Whatever were gains to me I now consider loss.

02 I consider everything a loss.

03 I consider them garbage.

Three times Paul uses a term that means to evaluate, to reckon, to do the accounting. This isn’t primarily about how he felt. It’s about a judgment he made and then kept making.

This isn’t primarily about how he felt. It’s about a judgment he made and then kept making.

That’s really good news for anyone who has been waiting to feel differently about the things they’re holding. Paul doesn’t say that his heritage stopped appealing to him or that releasing it was emotionally simple. He says he did the math and reached a conclusion, and that conclusion held even on the days his feelings didn’t cooperate.

What are you counting, and what’s it worth?

Most of us have never actually done the accounting. We carry a background sense that we’re doing reasonably well, built out of church attendance, decent behavior, and a comparison with people who are visibly doing worse. It never gets examined because it never gets written down.

Paul wrote it down, looked at it, and moved the whole column.

Notice one more thing before this week closes. He didn’t empty his life. He traded it. Verse 8 ends with the words that I may gain Christ, so the ledger has a profit side after the transfer and everything on it is Jesus.

Counted as Loss

Everything I trusted

Surpassing Gain

Knowing Christ

That’s why this isn’t a sad passage. A man who lost his status, his religious community, his safety, and eventually his life describes the arrangement as surpassing worth. No one talks that way about a bad deal.

Take the list you wrote on Tuesday and look at it one more time. Then say out loud, and mean it as far as you’re able today, that these are loss compared to knowing Christ. You may not feel it yet, and Paul isn’t asking you to feel it. He’s asking you to count it.

Feelings tend to follow a judgment that gets repeated, and they almost never lead one.

Reflect

Have you ever actually done this accounting, or have you been carrying an unexamined sense that you’re doing fine? What happens when you write it down?
Paul made a judgment and kept making it, regardless of his feelings. What judgment do you need to make this week and then keep making?

Today’s Move

Take the list from Tuesday and physically dispose of it, whether that means tearing it up or throwing it away, and pray as you do it.

Then write one sentence on a fresh card that says what you’re counting on instead, and keep that one where you’ll see it.

Pray

Father, I’ve carried an unexamined confidence for years, and I want to do the accounting honestly. I count it all as loss compared to knowing Christ. Where my feelings haven’t caught up, hold me to the judgment anyway, and show me more of Jesus until the trade makes obvious sense. In Jesus’ name, amen.