Philippians 3:7
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 [c]in view of the surpassing value of [d]knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, [e]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, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and [f]the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 [g]in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
I have heard the saying, “You will never know that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.” This is so true. I can now say from experience, that He is all I need. He is ever there, always watching over us, praying for us, living in us, and spurring us on in faith. God brought this passage to mind for me one time, when I was losing so much of what I felt I needed. I lost two home, my husband lost his job, we were almost destitute. We helped with the homeless, where we lived, and the gentleman running the shelter told us, “If you need a place to stay, we have a place for you.” My husband and I though we were going to have to take him up on his offer. But God stepped in just in the nick of time and saved us from destitution. What an awesome God we serve.
I cried out to him in all that loss, “God, I thought we were following Your lead, we’ve lost everything.”
I heard God’s familiar whisper, “Yes Carole, and when you count it all as loss compared to knowing Me, you will understand.”
Well, I am seeing unbelievable fruit produced from that season of loss. The ashes of my ruined life have saturated the soil with The nutrients of God’s love, grace and goodness. All new fruit is coming out of what I thought was the end of things. What an awesome and mighty, kind and wonderful, precious and redeeming God we serve.
God bring beauty from ashes, even in the darkest places in our lives. Amen and Amen
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