As we Suffer the Loss of all things on account of Christ, we Gain Christ and Enjoy Him

When we see the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, we drop all other things for Him; we gain Christ by suffering the loss of all things that were once a gain for us and by counting them as refuse.

If we were to get into the depths of Paul’s thought in Phil. 3:7-8, where he says that on account of Christ he counted all things loss, and he even suffered the loss of all things to gain Christ, we will realise that he didn’t just give up the worldly things but also matters of religion, philosophy, and culture.

It is easy to say that we give up the world, sin, worldly pleasures, and entertainment for Christ, but what about our culture, our religion, and our philosophy?

Satan is very subtle in keeping us from the experience of Christ by keeping us busy with our culture, our religion, and our philosophy; by default, by our mere growing up in this world, we are constituted and governed by these three things.

The Lord needs to expose in us the subtlety of the enemy so that we may realise how many things – even good, high, positive, and refined things such as religion, culture, and philosophy – replace Christ, being a substitute for Christ in a secret way.

As a result of our focusing on these things, we are fully occupied and busy with them, and there’s no room in us for Christ.

Satan may be OK with us dropping the worldly and material things for the Lord, because he knows that he can use the good and positive things of religion, philosophy, and culture to keep us busy and distracted from fully gaining Christ and experiencing Him.

Paul realised that this is the enemy’s strategy, and he confessed that he once boasted in his religion, his culture, and his philosophy, but when he saw the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, he dropped all these.

He even considered them as refuse, as dung, as something that is to be thrown out and disposed of….Oh, when we see Christ, when we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, we will consider all other things as loss on account of Christ, and we will eventually suffer the loss of all things and consider them as refuse.

However, we can never force ourselves to do this; simply by hearing a speaking on the excellency of Christ or being stirred up concerning Him cannot be the base of dropping all other things and considering them as refuse.

We need the Lord’s mercy to receive the revelation of Christ and His excellency, and once we see Him, once we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, we will spontaneously be willing to suffer the loss of all things that were once gain for us, and we will even count them as refuse.

We gain Christ by Laying Hold of Him to Experience and Enjoy His Unsearchable Riches

When Paul said that he wants to gain Christ, this word “gain” in Greek means to secure, to obtain, to lay hold of (Phil. 3:8). When we gain Christ, we lay hold of Christ, just as He has laid hold of us. We gain Christ by laying hold of Him, possessing Him, and obtaining Him.

To gain Christ is actually to gain His person, to experience and enjoy and take possession of all His unsearchable riches (Eph. 3:8). Christ is the embodiment of the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9), and He is the reality of the shadow of all the positive things in the universe (Col. 2:16-17).

To gain Christ is to experience Christ, to enjoy Christ, and to take possession of His unsearchable riches. Before we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, we may have wanted to gain other things; a position in the word or in the church, a career, or certain high honor might have been something that we desired to obtain.

But when we see Christ, when we have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, we realize how foolish it is to pursue or keep all those other things, and we willingly give up everything and put them aside to gain Christ.

The reason we regarded certain things, positions, people, and situations as gain in the past was that we did not know Christ; once our eyes are opened to see Christ, we seek to gain Him by experiencing Him and enjoying His unsearchable riches.

Once we see the unsearchably rich Christ, we realise that we can give ourselves and everything we have just to enjoy Him and experience Him, and no price is too high for this. But many times as believers in Christ we may not treasure Christ that much.

When Paul spoke of Christ, he didn’t just say that Christ is so great and so rich; he said, the riches of Christ is unsearchable – they are too great, we can’t even describe them or reach the end of these riches.

Seeing a vision of the excellency of Christ and paying the price to gain Christ will cause us to treasure Him to the uttermost; we gain Christ by laying hold of Him to experience and enjoy His unsearchable riches.

The reason Paul was the top one in the experience of Christ is that he had the highest revelation of Christ; if we read the New Testament we will realise that nobody else had the kind of revelation that Paul had.

How about us? What kind of Christ do we have, see, enjoy, experience, and therefore gain? It pleases God to reveal His Son in us, and when we enjoy Him and experience Him, we are inwardly motivated to count all other things loss on His account; then, we gain Christ, that is, we lay hold of Him to experience and enjoy His unsearchable riches.

Lord Jesus, we want to gain Christ by laying hold of Him to experience and enjoy His unsearchable riches. We give ourselves to obtain, to secure, and to lay hold of Christ, so that we may gain Christ to the uttermost. May our entire Christian life be a life of enjoying Christ, experiencing Christ, and possessing Christ, so that we may gain Him by laying hold of Him. Amen, Lord, may we gain more of the person of Christ, and may we enjoy and take possession and experience all the unsearchable riches of Christ!

The more we Suffer the Loss of All things on Account of Christ, the more we Gain Christ

Many times the believers in Christ – both brothers and sisters – may come to meetings in the way of window-shopping; they enjoy the meeting, but they go home and live their life, not paying the price to gain Christ.

We may like to listen to others speaking, we may even sing a little, but we may not pay the price to gain Christ. What is this price we have to pay to gain Christ? This price is to suffer the loss of all things.

If we look at Paul the apostle, he suffered the loss of all things – first he counted as loss all religious gain and all gain by natural birth, and then he counted all things as loss and even suffered the loss of all things.

He did all these in order to gain the Christ he had seen.

For example, we may spend a large amount of money to purchase something of great value; after purchasing that item and bringing it home, we may begin to regret the price we paid for it, but when we consider or use the item we purchased and realise its excellency, we don’t care about the price we have paid.

This is what happened to Paul, and this is what should also happen to us. The price Paul paid was to suffer the loss of all things so that he may gain Christ; was this a big or a small price?

It all depends on how we value Christ; if we value Christ the way Paul did, we would consider this as a bargain, for we gave up refuse so that we may gain Christ.

Like Paul we should not only count all things as loss on account of Christ (Phil. 3:7) but we should also suffer the loss of all things and count all things as refuse (v. 8).

This doesn’t mean that we should throw away all things or dispose of them and then retreat somewhere in the desert to enjoy Christ by ourselves; rather, we should simply seek to gain Christ by enjoying and experiencing His unsearchable riches, and we will be inwardly motivated to count all things as loss on account of Christ.

Then, when the time comes, we will suffer the loss of all things on account of Christ, and we will gain Christ.

We shouldn’t be scared at the price but rather, look at the prize! Don’t look at the P-R-I-C-E but look at the P-R-I-Z-E! The prize is much more than the price; the excellency of the knowledge of Christ is what motivates us count all things as loss and even to suffer the loss of all things!

It’s not that we lose everything and we remain with nothing; rather, we gain Christ, and He becomes everything to us, for He is the most wonderful, precious, and unsearchably rich for our experience and enjoyment, and this One is enough for us!

If we see the prize, if we see the top and ultimate enjoyment of Christ as our prize, the price will mean nothing to us. Rather, the more we suffer the loss of all hings and count them as refuse on account of Christ, the more we will gain Christ for our experience and enjoyment.

We will not count the cost or look at the price – we will simply give up everything willingly, and we will even consider all things that used to be gain for us as refuse, so that we may gain Christ!

Many of us can testify in faith and before the Lord that, once we see Christ, it’s all over; all other things lose their attraction and grip on us, and we don’t even worry about what comes later – it doesn’t matter what will happen, what matters is that we gain Christ.

We don’t really see this but the world actually wrecks us; by enjoying the world we think we are free, but we are actually bound and in slavery to so many things – entertainment, sports, technology, glory, fame, sin, lusts, etc.

All these things do not really satisfy us; they only enslave us and give us a short-lived enjoyment, after which they torment us.

When we see Christ, however, and when we gain Christ, we are really free; we are free to enjoy Him, to experience Him, and even to become Him.

We are free in Him, we are motivated by Him to pursue Him, and the things in the world become something that we use or own only to meet our needs, but they no longer enslave us.

May we open ourselves to the Lord, be motivated to pursue Christ, and we will be caused to enjoy Him; when we enjoy Him, we “get a little crazy” – we don’t pay attention to things like paying the price but rather, we just enjoy Christ, and everything is worth it!

Dear Lord Jesus, we love You; we treasure You and we give ourselves to You to just enjoy You, experience You, and gain You. You are the most precious One to us; besides You we have no one in heaven, and we desire nothing and no one on earth besides You. Lord, we count all things as loss on account of You, for we have seen Your beauty, Your excellence, and Your preciousness. It is Your enjoyment and experience that motivates us to count all things as loss on account of Christ and even suffer the loss of all things and count them as refuse. Amen, Lord Jesus!

This article can also be read in the Romanian language / Citiți acest articol în limba română vizitând următorul link, Pe măsură ce suferim pierderea tuturor lucrurilor de dragul lui Cristos, Îl câștigăm pe Cristos și Îl savurăm.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1978, vol. 1, “The Experience of Christ,” chs. 11-14, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Experience of Christ (2019 Memorial Day Conference), week 5, Having No Confidence in the Flesh and Counting All Things to Be Loss on Account of Christ and the Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Pursue Him and seize Him, Christ the supreme. / Just love this precious Person. / Forgetting and leaving all other things, / Love Him with your whole being. / Christ now is my center and reality, / My life for eternity. / All things are just dung compared to Him, / So love and just gain Him! (Song on, Pursue Him and Know Him)
  # What things were gains to me, / These I now count as loss. / Jesus has set me free / From what I was! / All of the things I had; / Everything, good or bad, / I count as refuse / That I may gain Christ! (Song on, What things were gains to me)
  # Press on, press on, count all things loss. / All that is gain to us, / To win the prize, the Christ of God, / Is far more glorious! (Hymns #1205)