Philippians 3:7–8
7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.
8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.
Paul lived his life seeking Christ. Before his Damascus Road experience Paul’s goal in life was to stop the Christian movement. He imprisoned and executed those who were followers of Christ. Was Paul an evil person? He was not in his own eyes nor the eyes of the religious elite, which he was a part of. There was one event in Paul’s life that changed him from being the persecutor to being the persecuted. Paul came to know Christ. Not just intellectually but spiritually.
Paul had a change in his life that was real and meaningful. The Christ he set out to destroy was now living in his life. Paul lost everything in this world for the “excellence of the knowledge of Christ.” Eventually this search, this ambition to know Christ would lead to his physical death. Paul already stated in Philippians 1:21 “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” These were not just words. Paul lived this in his mission, his pursuit of Christ.
Paul writes in Philippians 3:12–13
12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead. Paul put the past behind him and focused on God. He pressed on no longer living for the world or for religious purposes but living for Christ.
What is your goal, your ambition? The strength of our Christian faith is being tested daily. Soon we will be forced to choose. Joshua pleaded with the Israelites to make a choice we must make today. In Joshua 24:15 he says, “And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. BUT AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.”