All that I wish for – 29 October 2020
By Ewald Schmidt
Um(Imi)bhalo weBhayibheli
KwabaseFilipi 3
What is your deepest desire in life? What do you want to accomplish with the time you have been given on earth? Paul started this discussion by listing everything that was important to him in life. His nation, his tribe, his culture, his spirituality. His zeal to persecute the church of Christ. But none of those things had given him the sense that he was firmly grounded in life.
Everything in his life had changed the day he met Christ on the road to Damascus. When Jesus was busy with his ministry on earth, Paul was his enemy. He tried his best to eradicate the church from this world. He, like all Pharisees, would have known when Jesus had been executed on the cross. He would have rejoiced. What a shock it must have been to meet the risen Lord Jesus on that day, on the road to Damascus. It had shaken his life, it had smashed all the foundations Paul had been building his life on. It had changed his whole life. That is why he can testify: all I long for in life is to know Christ … It is the most important foundation of my being: to live in a relationship with the living Lord. He has given me hope, the power of the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is also working in me. It is worth sacrificing everything else, even to face persecution and death to follow Jesus.
Paul had found that Christ Jesus had taken hold of him. He gave Paul a new life. Paul now felt the need to change, to become the man that God has intended him to be. He wanted to grab hold of the new life in Christ, and live it to the full, to glorify God. May we, like Paul have that yearning and desire to proclaim, “I want to know Christ!”
Prayer: Lord Jesus, I have the same desire as Paul has shared today. I want to know you! I want to experience the power of the Spirit, the power that raised you from the dead. I want to live a life that glorifies you, in all that I am, and all that I do. Thank you for giving me life! Amen
