Living In His PowerSample

Knowing Christ

If we look at Philippians 3 through an accounting perspective, Paul shows us not the balance sheet but the imbalance sheet of knowing Jesus. There is nothing we can do to balance the sheet, nothing we can do to turn it to our advantage. If we want to make it about our abilities, our wisdom, knowledge, and our achievements, our resume will never be good enough. No human being can pay the debt of sin. It is Jesus, Jesus alone, who can erase our debt. All that is left for us to do is to surrender to Him and live in His power.

Can you imagine Paul as the accountant who is going to show us the so–called balance sheet? We are going to take a look at the liabilities versus the assets, and these are two things that have to balance out. Paul is going to show us the imbalance sheet of coming to know Jesus Christ. The assets of knowing Jesus erase the debt that we have and then some. So, it will not be a balance sheet, but an imbalance sheet. We need to count everything as a loss to gain Christ, whose worth is beyond measure. We need imbalance to gain balance. 

If we keep looking at this from this accounting perspective, how do we get our debts paid? By the blood of Jesus. By faith in Jesus Christ. By knowing Jesus Christ and recognizing Him as our Lord and Savior. In Romans 5:8 the Bible says, “But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Christ died for our sins. He did so to pay our debt with God the Father. His death erased our debt. Mark 10:45 says He gave His life as a ransom for us. Again, we no longer have a debt to pay to be set free, He has already paid the price for our lives. 

When we get to know Jesus as Paul talks about in Philippians, we understand that when He paid our debt, when He balanced the sheet, He did so as a gift to each one of us, so that we could have life. It is then we realize that there is nothing we can do that can pay our debt to the Father, to live our life in eternity with Him. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Are you willing to lose everything you know to gain the knowledge of Christ?