What is the most important thing to you? Your career? Your connections? Your reputation? Paul had all of these things, before he became a Christian. But when Jesus revealed Himself to Paul on the road to Damascus, Paul’s whole world was turned upside down. After that, in verses 7 and 8, Paul says that he not only began to consider Jesus as more important than all those good works and relationships and genealogies he had taken so much pride in. No, compared to knowing Christ, he saw all those things as no better than trash.

And so, instead of trying to earn his own salvation through keeping the Law or by going through ceremonies like circumcision, verse 9 says that all Paul wanted was to have the righteousness of Christ credited to his account. And verse 10 affirms that he would choose Christ over everything else, even if that meant sharing in His suffering and death.

Yes, for Paul, the ultimate prize is nothing less than the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. For to be called by God is to be assured that we will share in His eternal glory. To be called by God is to be assured of His love. But to be called by God also entails our response to that call. It involves reorienting our priorities the way Paul did – putting Jesus first in our lives. It involves a response of obedience and faithfulness to Him. And even if such obedience requires us to join Christ in His death, we are sure we will also be joined to His resurrection.

So, what’s your top priority? If it’s anything besides Christ Himself, can it really be worth very much? Today, let’s put everything else aside and strive for a closer relationship with Jesus. For the good news is that, as verse 12 says, as we seek to lay hold of Him, He has already laid hold of us. And unlike our merely worldly preoccupations, He will never let us down.

Philippians 3:7-16 (NAS)

7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ,
9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
10 that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;
11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you;
16 however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.