We have been going through this series with our youth kids about sharing your story. I shared last week, so I thought I would post it on here :)
Philippians 1:21 – “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
Philippians 1:21 has been my favorite verse for a long time. But it took me such a long time to begin to grasp what it really meant – what it was really about. I feel like I’ve gone through stages of grasping the meaning of this scripture.
I grew up in a Christian home. In fact, my dad was a pastor. I was raised in the church. According to my parents, I came to them at 4 years old and told them I wanted to ask Jesus into my heart. I don’t particularly remember this day, but I remember being conscious of the fact that I needed Jesus to save me. At such a young age, I had a very limited understanding of exactly what that meant.
Life continued, and I started growing up. Being a pastor’s kid came with it’s own set of….unspoken expectations: behaving a certain way, knowing the right answers, these things just came with the territory. I accrued a lot of head knowledge in those years – scripture verses, theological concepts, etc. But that’s all it was. Head knowledge. I didn’t really apply it to my heart or my life. In fact, I remember most Sundays being so anxious for the sermon to be finished. I would get so frustrated when my dad would go over, or embarrassed when he would get super passionate about something. I would point at my wrist or try and find a way to discreetly gesture towards the clock. Hey dad, it’s time to be done talking about Jesus. You’re allotted time is finished! My faith wasn’t my own. I was playing the part. I took on the faith that I was “supposed” to have. It would NOT have looked good if the pastor’s kid didn’t know Jesus. My identity was not in Jesus – it was in being the pastor’s kid. At that point in my life, I only looked at the “to die is gain” part of the verse. I was concerned with getting heaven. I look back now and see how much valuable wisdom I missed…I wish I could go back and listen to what my dad had to say. Get excited about Jesus along with him.
Around the time I was 13, my dad made a decision that rocked my world. He decided to resign from being a pastor. Now, this might not sound like a huge deal, but to me, everything I knew, everything I placed my security in was about to change. Not only was he resigning, but we were leaving the church. The church was who I was. I WAS a pastor’s kid. Without that security, I didn’t know who Melanie was. His decision to leave shattered who I thought I was. That year, my family took a trip to the beach. During that beach trip, I was really wrestling with my faith. At that point, I realized that I had been professing a faith that wasn’t my own. That whole trip, I really took time to evaluate whether or not I really wanted to live for Jesus. There was no pressure anymore to be the perfect pastor’s kid. It was just me. Was it worth it? Did I really believe in God? Did I really buy everything I had heard over the last however many years? By the end of that vacation I came to a conclusion – YES. I wanted Jesus. I wanted to have faith in Him. I didn’t just want to play the part – I wanted the real thing. That moment began the journey of understanding the first half of that verse – to live is Christ.
High School was an interesting time in my life. I really struggled with “to live is CHRIST.” Even though I had committed my heart to the Lord and wanted a real relationship with Him, I didn’t understand that living was Christ. I went to a private Christian high school, so it was really easy to say: well, we all claim to be Christians, so it must be ok. It was so easy to just go along with the crowd. I knew what the right thing to do was, but…I didn’t stand up and do it. It was so simple to sit and gossip with my girlfriends because, well, everyone was doing it. It was so simple to criticize others behind their back because…I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be well liked by my peers. Who doesn’t want that? And it was so easy to justify because we all said we were Christians.
Things started to change towards the end of my sophomore year. I really wanted to do some kind of ministry over the summer and I had a few options. I had been a camper at Trout Creek for the last few summers and I really wanted to work there. I was also invited to tour Europe and sing about Jesus with a choir group based in California. A few of my friends were also planning to go on the choir tour. I was so torn and I didn’t know what to do. So, for the first time, I started praying for God to reveal His will to me. I had prayed my whole life, but it was always for MY benefit. I had never really taken the time to ask God what HE wanted for me. The more I prayed and sought Him through the Word, the more on fire I felt for Him. I felt a tug on my heart towards Trout Creek. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had heard from God. I decided to apply to TC, and was accepted. I worked at TC for the next 3 full summers.
During my times at TC, God showed me what it was like to be walking with Him daily. And to feel the pull of the Holy Spirit. He showed me what it meant to pray. I would pray for energy to get through the week when I was exhausted – and an unexplainable energy would boost me through the rest of the week. I would pray for my campers every day, and it was so amazing to see God work in their lives. Sometimes they would come to know Christ and I would rejoice with them. Sometimes God would bring a verse to my mind to encourage them. And sometimes I would pray and pray for a camper, and they would leave at the end of the week without knowing Jesus. I had to learn to trust that what He was doing through me was still working, even though I didn’t see the immediate results. I tasted the sweetness of being in the Word daily and what an amazing gift God left us in His word. I was experiencing “to live is Christ!”
I came back to school each year, more inspired to actively live out my faith. My senior year I made some radical changes. I was more vocal with my beliefs. I chose to start removing myself from the gossip and crap. I would SAY that it wasn’t right and then walk away. I lost a few friends. But it was so cool to see that when I chose to live out Christ, it didn’t matter so much to me that I lost friends. It didn’t matter to me what other people thought. Before, to live meant being popular, well liked, being the athlete, the singer, the drummer, etc. I started realizing and LIVING Christ.
It wasn’t until I started college that my faith was really challenged. I took this class – Myths and Rituals. It was about the different myths, rituals, and symbols of different cultures and time periods. It was a really interesting class. About halfway through the class, our professor (who was a Catholic priest turned atheist) told us about the next book we were supposed to read. It was called Jesus Mysteries. The premise of the book was that Jesus never really existed. He was a mythical figure concocted from several different pagan myths and rituals and has morphed into the Jesus we read about in the Bible. Our task was to read this book and come to class discussions. I read the book. It was a hard book to read. If I hadn’t been vigilant in really digging into what the book was saying – and checking sources (the authors even quoted the Bible) I might have been convinced of their argument. In order to not look like an idiot in class, I had to come prepared with my own argument against what the book was saying – with my own convincing evidence. It was intimidating coming to class and be one of the only people ready to argue with the book and the professor. At this stage in my life, I really realized that “To live is Christ” wasn’t the norm. I realized that I couldn’t just live it out – in order to be a viable soldier and advocate for Christ, I had to be able to really talk about Him. Sure, I had shared the basics with campers and other people, but I had never really had anyone question me. Is there proof behind what you believe? Are you sure it isn’t all just a myth? These are the questions I had to be prepared to answer. I learned so much because of that class.
The last 4 years have really been a time of stretching and realizing that, even though I have learned and grown, I still have so much to grasp. Figuring out what it really means to LIVE is Christ. I can live out that verse in everything! In my relationships, in my speech, in my work, my family, my thought life, how I drive, how I interact with the grocery store clerk…everything. I am NOWHERE near perfect. But that’s part of working out my faith and presenting my life as a living sacrifice to the Lord.
The last 5 months have been the testing of my faith. Do I really believe that “To live is Christ and to die is gain?” Am I ready to live it out even when the circumstances of my life don’t make much sense? The events prior to Anthony’s death had formed my faith. Now, my faith is being stretched. Being refined by the fire. When God spoke to Abraham and told him to sacrifice his only son, even though God had promised to make many nations through Isaac…I’m sure that didn’t make much sense. I’m sure Abraham had questions for God. I’m sure he was wondering, “Why does it have to happen THIS way? Are you absolutely sure there is no other way?” But, regardless of his questions FOR God, he never questioned God. He took his only son up the mountain, laid him on the altar and lifted the knife. I wonder if Philippians had been written at that time if Abraham would have been saying to himself “to live is Christ and to die is gain.” To Abraham’s relief, God stepped in, intervened and saved Isaac’s life. Our story turned out differently. God didn’t step in and intervene the way we wanted Him to. Anthony never walked down that mountain. I have to wait till heaven to hear about the climb. I have questions FOR God. Yet, even though I have these questions.....I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is in control. HE is still sovereign. HE does NOT love us any less. HE is STILL a God of miracles. HE has a reason for all of this. Do I understand Him?? no. not at all. BUT. I know my God is TRUSTWORTHY. He knows everything. He sees and knows more than I ever could....And I claim Jeremiah 29:11 - For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a HOPE and a future! I cling to that. I also know that God has granted us the privilege to walk down this road. To suffer and grieve. To know a small picture of the suffering of our Lord. To be given the opportunity to sharpen and refine my faith...to be refined by the fire!
To live is (fill in the blank). Popularity, attention from the opposite sex, sports, sex, partying, academics…What is it? To live IS CHRIST. Living is meaningless without Christ. I challenge you to be real. Evaluate where you’re at. Do you really believe that living = Christ? Are you willing to live that out no matter what the circumstances? Your life isn’t promised to be perfect. But it will be a full life. It will be abundant. “I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10 And I’m telling you right now, that it is totally worth it.
