What Is Gain?

What is it that you wish you were born with? It can be many things….different sex,  height, hair color, race, wealth, intelligence, ability? I wish I could sing. I can sing, but, trust me, you don’t want to listen.  We look at others with envy. Why is it we want other people’s lives? Recent history is full of talented, rich, and/or famous people whose lives ended as a result of drugs, alcohol, suicide, or other forms of excess or self-destructive behaviors.  We look at what these people have and think “I would be OK, or even great if I had that thing. We want to be professional athletes, famous musicians, actors, rich and powerful, beautiful, skinny, smart. The list goes on. We are constantly searching and yearning for the thing in this life that will make everything OK.

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 so 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,
Phil 3:7-9 (NASB)

The human heart is searching. But, what can it find that will satisfy? We have a plethora of examples of how these temporal things can only fix so much. We need money. If you are destitute money can solve many things, but only up to a certain point. Safety and justice are important issues to pursue as societal values. Many things make life better, but they can only solve up to a certain point. If you think money can buy happiness, you have not paid attention to the news. What the human heart is looking for is God. Nothing else will satisfy. Will finding God fix everything? No. We will still have opposition, pain and suffering in this life. But making peace with God is finding “home.” It is the thing the heart is looking for and the only way we can make sense of the world around us. It is a place of peace. It is a place of coherence. It is a place of hope. It is a place of contentment. It is what substance use is seeking. We are all looking for Him.

Leave a Comment

Scroll to Top