Every disciple of Jesus Christ should consider that all he has gained or will gain as a person that has not been gained through prayer, waiting on the Lord, and strict obedience to the Spirit of God, is loss for Christ, loss for himself or herself, and loss for those to whom he ministers the Gospel. The flesh profits nothing!

Compare this attitude with the current teaching that if we have faith in Christ we can get anything we want! How immature we are in the things of the Kingdom of God!

What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ (Philippians 3:8—NIV)

Can you and I say this—that we consider every aspect of our life as loss when compared to the greatness of knowing Christ? Isn't it true today that if we have taken the "four steps of salvation" twenty years ago and have attended church since that time we now think we know Christ and are ready to go to Heaven?

Do we, as Paul, view coming to know Christ as a lifelong fight, a race, a struggle against forces determined to keep us ignorant of Christ and His ways?

Have we lost all things because of our pursuit of Christ? Do we count what we have lost for the Gospel as being garbage?

Are we leaving all that we may "gain Christ"?

Gain Christ? What does it mean to gain Christ? Haven't we gained Christ as a result of making a profession of faith?

Evidently not!

What are we to do then?

We are to immediately ask God to give us the same attitude as the Apostle Paul.

No, we do not know Christ. No, we have not gained Christ even though we have been a Christian for many years.

Christ has to be known! Christ has to be gained! There is a fight to be fought each day if we would know and gain Christ.

There is a race to be run each day if we would know and gain Christ.

There is a struggle to be engaged in each day if we would know and gain Christ.

The drums of Hell are beating to the attack in our day. Moral evil is pressing down on the people of the United States as a dark, heavy blanket. To not, in the present hour, turn aside from all else and seek to know and gain Christ is to slip backward into the darkness. This is true for each one of us whether or not we profess to be "saved."

And be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. (Philippians 3:9—NIV)

Look carefully at the above verse. In the light of our present Evangelical teaching this means our Christian life should be one of believing the facts about Christ, about the atonement, and then we will be righteous even though our behavior is not godly. We are righteous by faith alone without actually behaving righteously.

To be continued.