Word for the day by Christian Education Forum

Passion to Evangelize

Philippians 1:12-21

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

             The church in Philippi was founded by the apostle Paul on his second missionary journey, recorded in Acts 16:1-40.  Paul originally went to Macedonia because of a night vision described for us in Acts 16:9. In it Paul saw a man of Macedonia standing and asking Paul come over to help them. Paul responded and so the gospel went triumphantly westward beginning in Philippi as the first city to be evangelized in Europe. When the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church at Phillipi, the circumstances of his life weren’t exactly ideal. Paul was a prisoner and yet this entire letter shouts with triumph. It is filled with the words “joy” and “rejoicing”. 

            For a believer, “to live is Christ.”  The righteous man has two lives.  He has one which he inherited from his parents.  He has a second life, a spiritual life for which Jesus Christ is the parent.  That spiritual life is derived from Jesus and it is Jesus who lives in that person.  And so the Christian says, “For me to live is Christ,” because it is life with the parentage that is not of human origin, but divine, of Christ himself; Christ is the food on which he feeds and the sustenance of his new born spirit. Brothers and sisters, can we say, as professing Christians that for us to live is Christ?  Most of us are accepted in our community as true and real Christians; but in reality and truth we are interested in making more money, amassing wealth, and engrossed with the things of this world.  

The Death of the Christian: “To die is gain” is one of the Gospel riddles, which only the Christian can truly understand.  To die is not gain if we look upon the merely visible; it is a loss. When we die, we have to leave our estates, mansions, family, friends, fame, and everything we cherished in life. Then how can a Christian say that it is gain?

1.      We gain a better body – a glorified, immortalized, and resurrected body.   In this present body of clay we are subject to all the sorrows and tears of life. Age, sickness, and finally death are the inevitable end of this house made of the dust of the earth. But in death and the resurrection we gain a better body, one that can never grow old, know disease, suffer pain, and can never die.

2.      We gain a better home. The beauty and the embellishments of any house we may possess in this world is nothing compared with our mansion in the beautiful city of God. Look at the promise of our Lord in John 14:1-3.  “Do not let your hearts be troubled ……….. “  We gain a better inheritance.  Our final reward is not here – it is in Heaven. 

3.      We gain a better fellowship. All of us live in this world of a dissolving family circle. In our Earthly abodes death takes away our dear ones - mother is gone, or father is gone, or a child is gone, or our beloved grandparents are gone, or a close friend is gone. But the circle is unbroken in Heaven forever and ever. There is no death, no sorrow, no crying or no pain in Heaven and Christ is there to give us eternal fellowship!

If for me to live is “Christ,” then to die is “gain.”  If for me to live is “money” then to die is “loss.”  If for me to live is “self,” then to die is “loss.”  If for me to live is “greed,” then to die is loss.  If for me to live is “sin,” then to diesis“loss.”
Prayer: “Our Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us life on this beautiful Earth. You have blessed us abundantly.  Do not let us run after the worldly possessions and pleasures. Help us to live a life pleasing to you and be true witnesses for you so that when we have to depart from this Earthly home, our death will not be a loss, but gain.”  Amen!

Thought for the day: “To die is gain”

Mathew P George, St. Johns MTC, NY

Theme for the week: Passion to Evangelize