Philippians 3:7-9, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ…for His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him…”
Many things could be said about this section of scripture, but the one that is standing out to me today is how absolutely essential it is for the Christian to “be found” in nothing other than Christ.
Paul says that he has “suffered the loss” of all things and counted them as rubbish in order that he might gain Christ and be found in Him. In the context of Philippians 3, the “all things” that Paul is talking about includes at least all things in which he might find his identity or value or confidence or sense of personal worth (see 3:4-6). At the very least, Paul is saying that he has had ALL sources of self-confidence stripped from him so that he might be found in nothing other than Christ…..
Consider what it would look like to find ourselves in something other than Christ…..to find ourselves (or be found) in our achievements…to find ourselves in our excellence…to find ourselves in how others respond to us…to find ourselves in our insight or intelligence or leadership influence etc. etc…..at least for me, it is incredibly tempting to “find myself” in these sorts of things…
But Paul revels in the fact that EVERYTHING has been stripped from him that he might be found—utterly naked, as it were—in CHRIST alone. That is the desire of the regenerate soul….to be stripped of ALL self confidence, to count as rubbish ALL of which we would be tempted to say, “I am found here,” and to know ourselves and find ourselves only and wholly in the Beloved Son who loves us and gave Himself for us…..because only if we have forsaken all self-confidence and found ourselves in Christ will we—in that last day—be found in Him “not having a righteousness of [our] own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”
