“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” Philippians‬ ‭3:8‬

What is the most important thing in your life? Generally speaking, the thing that is the most important in our life is what we gain our identity from.

For some of us we would say that our most important thing is our children. For others it may be our career. For others it may be our social action activity. Still others may look at the future and may say the most important thing now is to prepare for the future by building a nest egg for our kids for college and for our retirement.

It’s important to realize that none of those things are bad things in anyway. The things that we have in this life are important. But the most important things are we what we are laying up for ourselves in eternity. Each of us will face eternity whether we believe in it or not. The important question is “how are we preparing for eternity?”

The apostle Paul put all of these things, relationships, finances, family, and careers in the same category as garbage! It isn’t that he doesn’t think they are important, he has just come to the realization in his life that the most important thing to him is his faith in Jesus Christ. Everything else may fall away but our faith will remain strong through every circumstance.

The fight for power, rights and control is never more evident than it is today. This fight is driven by emptiness, pain, and hatred. It shows itself in anger. There will be no peace this side of Heaven.

There will be no contentment until we grow deeper in Jesus. The deeper we go the more peace we gain. It’s much like mining for diamonds. We can stop in shallowness and enjoy the a few low quality diamonds or dig deep and get the best ones. The best diamonds are deeper and get better the deeper we go. Grow deep! Reap the best God has for you.