Gaining Perfect Security In Christ

Gaining Perfect Security In Christ

“For me to live is Christ , and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh , this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what shall I choose I cannot tell. For I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better.”

Philippians 1: 21 – 23

When will a certain death be a gain to a person ?

Some people believe that they will gain by dying. Certain religious belief claim that they will earn great reward in heaven when they die killing enemies of their faith. That is why suicide bombers have proliferated.

For the great apostle Paul dying is gaining . Paul has a perfect assurance of his salvation. This passage reveals that a person while living can be assured of his eternal destiny. Apostle Paul has a hundred percent assurance of his eternal salvation because first and foremost he lived for Christ and Christ the foundation of his faith is the truth.

For apostle Paul, living means living for Christ. His world revolved around Christ and the meaning of his life is Christ. Why must Paul has an intense and burning love for Christ ? Paul has an intense love for Christ because he experienced a very great salvation in Christ for he had been a terrible sinner.

I believe the one who had the greatest love for Christ is the one who saw himself as the worst of sinners. Paul had seen himself as the chief of sinners. For Paul had been a murderer and the chief persecutor of Christians. He had been a mortal enemy of the church of JesusChrist.

Based from my own experience as a Christian , my love for Christ grew intense only when I saw myself as a terrible sinner, when I saw the depth of my depravity. Prior to seeing the depth of my carnality, I was a shallow Christian, may be considered as a lukewarm Christian. But after seeing the depth of my sinfulness I become a committed Christian and I started living for Christ.

This reality must influence the way we evangelize unbelievers. In winning souls for Christ, it is very important then that unbelievers will see first the depth of their depravity and sinfulness, that they may experience the reality of the saving power of the Gospel. That they will become genuine Christians who has intense love for Christ.

One can only experience the saving power of the Gospel upon seeing the gravity of sinfulness in a person’s life. The church greatest servants emerged from the world’s worst sinners.

John Newton, composer of the classic hymnal “ Amazing Grace “, prior to the day he found Christ lived a wayward and immoral life as a sailor. St. Augustine one of the esteemed church fathers prior to the day of his conversion to Christ, lived a godless and worldly lifestyle . He pursued worldliness in search for the meaning of life. C.S. Lewis was once a hardline atheist before coming to know Christ. After knowing Christ, he became a writer of great christian classic literature that impacted the world tremendously.

True repentance comes only to the broken sinner. Without being broken for our sinfulness, I doubt if we will ever observe true repentance. True repentance paves the way for the power of God to work in our lives towards our sanctification. Only upon true repentance we can ever experience the power of the Holy Spirit to fully work in us towards holiness and Christian maturity.

With the presence of Spirit power in our lives , our love for Christ will grow more intense and will lead us to live more for Him day after day. This will give us perfect assurance of our eternal salvation. Having attained this, we too can say with apostle Paul, “ to live is Christ and to die is gain. “ We will gain by dying because we will be in the eternal presence of Christ.