I think there is a limit to how much of Jesus we can know and love in our current conditions. The worse and more dire our conditions, the more intensely we would know and love Jesus. My condition (perhaps not yours) can hardly be considered dire. I am a middle class American with a wife and two children, owns a mini-van, a house, and gainfully employed. The greatest difficulty I faced in the last year is juggling between family, church, and school…

But when I read Paul, I hear an entirely different intensity level of love and knowledge of Jesus. I can make myself sound spiritual by saying that I want what Paul wants, and I do to some degree, but not to the intensity that he does. And I’m not sure if I ever will. Listen to how he puts it…

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him…. that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like in his death….” Phil 3:8-10

Paul loved Jesus so much that he wanted to suffer and die like Him! Why? Because in doing so, he will know and identify with Him completely. I want all the benefits of Jesus, but I don’t really want to suffer. But Paul wanted Jesus so badly that he chose suffering in order to identify with Him in His suffering! That, I do not understand, again because I’m a comfortable middle class American…

There are certain knowledge of Jesus and pleasures that come with it that I will never know because I have never suffered like Paul. That is Paul’s and likes of Paul’s privileges. They deserve praise way beyond the ordinary folk like me.

If you have suffered much for Christ’s sake, then you have my respect. Your love and knowledge of Jesus is likely deeper and bigger than mine. But if you have not suffered much for the sake of Christ, then let’s not pretend that we know as much as those who did.

In the meantime, let us not complain or grumble in our circumstances. If anything, we should complain and grumble because many of us have it too good…

PH