Knowing the Banana: part 2

Phil 3:8-11
I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
NIV

I want to pick up where I left off last time. We talked about how Paul considered everything a loss compared to knowing Christ. Here he is considering all those former things junk in order that he might gain Christ and be found in Him. John writes in his Gospel account: "He must increase, but I must decrease." John 3:30. When we loose who we are we gain who He is. That is awesome because it is far greater a thing for Christ to live through me. Then all things are possible!

Paul then makes the statement that the righteousness that comes from God is through faith in Christ. He is telling us that our righteousness should come from God. That righteousness, that comes from God, comes only by faith; faith in Jesus Christ. Consider this, we are saved by grace through faith. Grace comes from God, righteousness comes from God and they both can only come through faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1. James tells us that faith without action is dead and it can't save you. Therefore, when we believe in God and His Son Jesus Christ and declare Him to be the Lord(Ruler) of our lives then He supplies the power, equipment, weapons, armor, wisdom, strength, resources, and everything else we need to live holy and all we have to do is believe and act on our beliefs. We cannot sit idle in a pew (or chair) and expect God to do the work. That is like going to work and sitting at your desk expecting your boss to do the job he hired you to do. You would get fired! Well God has a job for us and He has given us everything we need in order to perform our job. I am not talking about a life of works getting you into heaven, it is an issue of the heart. The fruit of someone trying to earn heaven and someone who is living by faith from heaven(we are seated in heavenly places- Ephesians 2:6) looks the same but it comes from a different place, one comes from pride and the other comes from God.

We need to stop walking around like whipped dogs and stand up straight as David did and begin knocking down a few giants and cutting off their heads. We are here to destroy the works of the devil and bring heaven to earth.

Well, I thought that this series of entries would be coming to a close soon but I guess I thought wrong. This "banana" is bigger than I thought and it is going to take more bites to get it all down. I pray today that you see God somewhere you have never seen Him before, that He would reveal Himself to you in a whole new way. I pray that everything that is done by you today would prosper and you would accomplish, with much satisfaction, everything you set out to do. God bless!