I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. (Philippians 3.12b)

Jesus. Jesus is worth it all. All else is loss when weighed against him. This is key. It is not equal or zero-sum. Christ-lessness is not equal to zero, nothing; the smooth line on the horizon. Without Jesus everything we have, all the joy, all the impulse, all the good things are losses. There is no merit apart from Christ. Left unchanneled through Jesus our good and great things, those things that bring us happiness and contentment, are dangerous negatives because they belie the economic reality of our souls. We are beyond bankrupt. We are destitute and steeped in crushing debt.

And indeed when we see Jesus for who He truly is all those great things are cast aside for His surpassing worth. Our love for father and mother, brothers and sisters cannot compare to His love. If they have kept us from His embrace they are deficits. Jesus longs to redirect them. Jesus desires to produce love in our lives so that He might produce love in theirs as well.

Jesus is our transcendence. He saw us in our impoverished debt, holding precious bobbles of corrupt clay like pearls of great price and He made us His own. He claimed us as His own and paid our debt in His blood. Knowing Jesus is of such surpassing worth that we press forward, we strain against the bobbles of our past to experience His glorious nearness. Knowing Jesus who has made us His own stirs within us a passion to pursue Him with all our zeal.

Jesus, loosen my hands from the things of the past and guide my outstretched arms to your presence.