“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21)
I love that verse. Paul, a prisoner in a Roman prison, waiting to know if he would be executed or not, writes to encourage his brothers in Philippi. He tells them that he doesn’t know for sure what the verdict will be, but he wants them to know that it doesn’t matter. To him, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
We can think of it as an algebra expression:
If x = life,
then death = gain
What can we substitute for x to make the expression true? Money? Power? Pleasure? Family? Work? No, none of those things work. How can we make death equal gain? By centering our life on Christ. If we try to substitute in any of the things of this world, the formula fails.
If our lives our built around Christ, we need have no fear of death. It ends up being gain for us!
I love that verse too! You must have a math-mind. :o) It’s amazing how that algebraic expression can affect my daily living as long as I keep it at the forefront of my mind. As long as I live, it’s all for Christ; and when I die … whoa, what a reward!!
Thanks Lisa. Good to see you here in the kitchen.
My dad was a math teacher; maybe that’s where I got it!
My wife’s a math teacher. I’ll have her check your computations ;-) LOL
Love the reference and application. We use “x” for Christ already — Xmas. “Substituting for x” gets us into plenty of non-algebraic problems already, doesn’t it?
Ooh… I’ll have to remember that, Barry. Good thoughts were made to be stolen, right?
If we want to know what the very hearbeat of Paul was, I think this verse says it all.
Grace and peace,
Rex