Do We Act like Everything Else is Garbage?

We start off with this scripture Philippians 3:8 “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake, I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ”

This is a profound statement.  We are to count everything as garbage.  Why would Paul be telling us this?  What Paul is saying is that we should look at everything that has nothing to do with God, Jesus, or heaven as garbage and can I tell you why.  Garbage is worthless, it has no value.  People don’t care about garbage, it’s stinky and basically just in our way and we, for the most part, want it removed.  To us, our garbage has no more value and we want to dispose of it.  We don’t care if someone else takes it.  It is completely meaningless.

I want you to do a little thinking right now.  I am sure that everyone has a place that they have dreamed of that would be their favorite place to live.  Like if someone was to ask you, “What if you could have any home you want, any style, any size, and have it anywhere you wish?”  I am sure you could come up with this dreamy place.  Now along with this house, you can have anything you wish in it and around it, any setting you want, lakes, mountains, streams, flowers, animals, horses, and the ideal weather setting as well, clear skies, white clouds, colorful sunsets, or snow-capped mountains in the background.  Maybe you’re on a beautiful lake with a waterfall off to the east.  Maybe it’s a 10,000 square foot mansion on 100,000 acres of lush, green grass, blue lakes, mountains in the background with a bit of snow atop, beautiful gardens, and trees; just an amazing place.  Now imagine this, your friends are there as well, only they live off in the distance in their own dreamy, ideal place, a place that suits their own desires.  Your Father’s mansion is the mansion of all mansions and you can see that up in the sky it’s pure crystal with a throne so bright it’s like the sun. 

One day your Father pays you a visit, he asks you go to the garbage dump that’s far away in another galaxy and search for the lost souls that live there and you need to convince them there is a better place.  Now they can’t see where you live and the key is that you have to get them to leave what they have known and how they have been living and live for your Father, serve Him, and worship Him.  Now for that, they can leave that garbage dump forever.  Only the garbage dump doesn’t look like a garbage dump, reason being is that Satan has created a mirage and so everyone can only see the lusts of that world that he has created, a self-centered world.  A world where the people are their own gods and what they experience is the lusts of the eyes, the lusts of the flesh, and the pride of life.  So now you need to get the people that are fooled into believing this place is amazing, that it is actually a garbage dump or a prison cell.  That one day the gate to the dump will be closed, locked, and sealed.  They need to repent and turn from their ways and they too can come live in this dreamy place for eternity.

You need to look at this world, and I am speaking in comparison to the kingdom of God.  I want you to imagine a dying world, blackened, ash flying around, everything looks destroyed, and only the children of God bring life back into the world.  Wherever they step instantly turns to beauty and a small space around them comes alive.  The things they touch also turn into color, beautiful.  We have to imagine our life on this planet like this because God tells us this world is dying and passing away.  So just imagine if we could see the world like this and see the dying trapped souls and when we touch the lost, hurting people that are walking around like zombies that they would become alive, colorful, and meaningful.  You have this God-given power within you to speak life into the lost soul.  We are called to be the world-changers, the peacemakers.  If we read Mark 12:30-31 it will tell us how we are to accomplish our mission:

“30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with your entire mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Paul was on a mission by God, for God.  God chose him to lead this mission set out for him no matter what happened, predestined if you may.  Paul starts off a murderer of Christians, an enemy of God, but turned into an apostle to walk a predetermined path set by God to do God’s will.  Paul’s life path is laid out in the living Word of God as an example to teach us, lead us, guide us, love us, and show us that there is only one path set out for those who love Him.  We are the citizens of heaven here on this earth to serve Him and count anything that’s not Kingdom business as garbage.  So as Paul tells us, let’s count it all garbage and make Jesus our main focus in life.