Message at @houstonsfirst by @afshinziafat

This is www.twitter.com/afshinziafat message to my church www.twitter.com/houstonsfirst last night,coming from Philippians 1:20-21, 3:2-9 and few other sections.

The overarching principal we need to understand for this and any message about the gospel or Christ is this: Bible teaches that life is only found in Christ. In otherwords, life cannot truly be found apart from Him and just doesn't make sense.

Paul's singular passion is that Christ would be honored in his life and body. Fully and in such a way that Paul would be unashamed of his message to the world, free or in chains, let Christ's will be done in all circumstances.

Paul then helps redefine the definitions of life and death, by completely and totally turn them on their heads. Life becomes completely immersion in Christ and His being both, physically and spiritually. We are custom-made for Christ and His use of us as His bond-servants, until we fully understand that, then life cannot fully be experienced.

This allows Paul to reassess his life and what he had been striving for and hoping to achieve, as a Pharisee, a Jew...Paul realizes that all his "good works" to fulfill the law and all he put his trust in and believed in, were not assets as he once believed but in actuality losses.

"Religion is man's way to God. Jesus is God's way to man."

Paul not only counts everything as loss but then actually does lose everything that he had held dear, prior to his conversion to being led by Christ's mindset, areas such as: freedom, his standing as a religious leader all were stripped from him as he put self aside and picked up Christ'sview of life. A full understanding of relationship with Christ and His call on our life equals out to us putting aside all the trappings that the world offers as a substitute to Christ. Sin if left unchecked will lead us down the treacherous slope of Entitlement and conceit: which is empty or vain glory.

Grace leads us to put down self and pick up Christ's view of life and put others in front of ourselves.

Paul then redefines death as gain, since death leads Christ's followers to His side for all eternity. So when your life is all about Christ, death is sought after and prized since it brings us to Christ, but if our life is about something else, the loss becomes an even greater loss that is uncomprehensible. Only in Christ, does death go from the enemy of life to a sought-after goal of life!
Our call is to cling to Christ and all He is and nothing else. Thus allowing us to live out what should be our singular passion: live out a self-less life that advances Christ and knowledge of Who He is. The grace from a Christ-led life should cause us to constantly set aside self and reach out to the world and help meet their needs with the Love of Christ.