QT Philippians 3

So today was the first day back at school. It was tough getting up and trying to get ready for school, I almost fell asleep while in the shower. That could've ended up badly. But I strained through it and I got here, and I'm still alive so yay. I realize now how easy it was to be close to God over the break because I was almost always at church or with church people 24/7 and there was nothing to do except have fun. But today I had to come home to responsibilities, making up past tests online, homework, and my job.

I was feeling tired so I decided to take a nap, which ended up being 3 and a half hours long. I woke up even more tired than when I went to sleep. I didn't want to stay up to do my homework, to do my QT, or to even eat my dinner. But I knew that I had to stay persistent, that was basically one of the main things God spoke to me while I was up at retreat. So I ate some dinner, worked on my homework, took my makeup tests online, and finally whipped out my Bible.

I had fallen today to sin, and I wanted advice in my life. Whenever I think about receiving advice from the Bible I always think of Proverbs, the Gospel, and the letters that Paul wrote. I decided that I was too tired to try and dig deep into the parables of Jesus, and I didn't feel like clawing through the Old Testament tonight, so I decided to go with a letter from Paul. But which one should I open up to? My hands chose Philippians.

Which chapter had I chosen? Since I had fallen to sin the first chapter I had glanced at was the one that says a Christlike Attitude. I figured that chapter would have been a good place to start. Right before I was about to start Joanne JDSN messaged me on Facebook, so I thought it might be important so I looked at it. She was just asking about my first day back, so I responded and quickly turned back. Before I started reading I decided to look at the other chapter that started on the same page I was on. It read "Know Him". For some reason this drew me towards it so much more rather than the other chapter, so I decided to read Philippians 3 instead.

At first Paul was talking about being circumcised when he was eight days old, and being born into a pure blooded Jewish family, and being part of the Pharisees, and I started second guessing my choice of chapters. But I continued to read on and eventually the chapter began to make sense to me.

Philippians 3 : 7-9 ; "I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God's law, but I trust Christ to save me. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith."

Being right with God doesn't matter on how many rules I did or didn't follow, but it matters based on the fact of my faith and how much I know Christ, my Savior. I was talking with James on Sunday about how some people can't completely understand everything that Jesus did for them on the cross. It is a hard concept to grasp, I admit. A shaggy man thousands of years ago being tortured and crucified on a cross for the entire world's sins and the sins of billions of people to come. The act of walking into betrayal because he knew that there was no other way that it could be done. Suffering while dying slowly on the cross even though Jesus had the power and the authority to call off the entire thing with even his slightest whim. But he didn't, he did it for love, he did it for us, he did it for me. Then all I have to do is get to know him, believe in him, and he will erase the record of all my filthy sins? Believe it people, it is that great of a proposition. Along with believing in him, getting to know him and his father, our God, I understand now that I will be blessed even while living on this earth. I understand that he will bless me when I return home to Heaven, but if I live for him while on this planet, if I devote my life and my blessings to go back to him then he will use me, he will tend to his lost sheep through my life. People who don't know him or may have denied him or may be so indifferent to him will be able to know him if I would just know him and let him live through me.

I want to dedicate my life to the Lord. All my blessings that I have received, all the joy and grace and mercy I have received does not belong to me, I want to be a channel for those blessings to flow out from. I want to be used by God, I want to be a tool which He could use to search for his lost sheep. I want to devote all my talents, everything that I have received from God, and all my gains to the better of His kingdom. I make that my prayer tonight. That God will use me and I will not be able to stifle the blessings with my own stubbornness or my own will, but that my will is the same will of God, that my eyes will be the same as his eyes, that I will reach out to the same people as Jesus would, that my feet would move in the same direction as Christ's would. That I may understand that everything else is worthless, that the only thing worthwhile is knowing God and living for Him.