PAUL’S DESIRE
‘That I may win Christ.’
Php_3:8
With St. Paul Christ was the one object which eclipsed everything he had before counted gain. Can you, as St. Paul did, take the things you value most, and with true sincerity of heart put them side by side with Christ and count them all loss?
I. What place has Christ in your heart?—In the past, the present, and the future with St. Paul, it was all Christ.
II. What is Christ to you now?—Can you say, ‘I still count, as I did at first’? Is Christ to-day as precious to you as when you first started on your Christian course?
III. What have you suffered for Christ?—For your Christian testimony, your cleaving to and living for Christ?
Illustration
‘Saviour, Whose life, Whose death was all for me,
And Thine obedience mine,
Oh suffer me to yield myself to Thee
And make me wholly Thine.
Grant me to lie within Thy arms of love,
From self entirely free,
To anchor to the glorious Hope above,
To trust my all to Thee.
I’d be the helpless clay—the Potter Thou—
Oh mould me to Thy will,
In joyous yielding let my spirit bow,
And bid my soul be still.
I tremble not, though tossed on life’s rough sea,
Nor heed the breakers’ roar;
For every billow, guided, Lord, by Thee,
But nears me to the shore,
The further shore! Oh joy, I’ve anchored there!
Steadfast, and sure, and strong!
And Thou wilt guide and guard and safely bear
And bring me home ere long.
Lord,’tis enough, I am no more mine own,
Saviour, for ever Thine, and Thine alone.’