Read: Philippians 3:7-11

I want to know Christ. (v. 10 NRSV)

Our meditations for this month will focus on knowing Christ, and they will be grouped under five words: passion (1-5), possibilities (6-12), preliminaries (13-17), practices (18-24), and proof (25-31). What do you think of when I say the word “passion”? I think of a line from W. B. Yeats famous poem “The Second Coming”: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”

That line of the poem should trouble us a great deal. Is it true that the best lack all conviction? Can it be that Christians are not full of passionate intensity? Is that why things are falling apart in this world? Let’s focus first on the passion that moved Paul and the other early Christians to turn their “world upside down” (Acts 17:6).

Some readers will recall a scene from the movie, City Slickers, in which the grizzled old cow hand, Curly (Jack Palance), is giving advice to Mitch (Billy Crystal), the clueless city slicker. “Do you know what the secret of life is?” asks Curly. Holding up his index finger, he says, “This.” “Your finger?” quips smart aleck Mitch. Curly growls, “One thing, just one thing. . . .” “That’s great,” says Mitch, “but what’s the one thing?” “That’s what you’ve got to figure out!”

Paul had found the one thing that mattered more to him than anything else: “I want to know Christ.” Do you?

Prayer:  Spirit of God, “teach me to love you as your angels love, one holy passion filling all my frame” (Croly). Amen.

Author: Stan Mast

https://woh.org/