Lord, I want to live for you...I don't care about anything else anymore. I don't care about how much money I make. I don't care how high I am on the corporate ladder. I don't care if I don't have a mansion. I don't care if my car sucks. I don't care if I don't have tons of cool things. I don't care if I'm missing out on the "best" that the world has to offer. There is nothing in all creation that could compare to knowing you. There is nothing that even comes close to the joy of being forgiven. There is nothing I could have that would be better than all the things you have done in my life, all the things that you are doing, and all the things that you're still going to do. You have a plan for my life and you have a calling for me. Even if I don't always think I can do anything for you, that doesn't change your plans or what you think. There is a whole lost world out there. There's a generation of millions of young people that have no hope. There's people I know personally in my own life that have no hope. As simple as it sounds, you really are coming back and those people need to be reached. That is far more important than anything else I could ever have in this world. I want to do something that really matters for all eternity. Give me strength to live for you, Lord. Following you is hard. I guess that's why you called your way the straight and narrow path that's not often traveled. I often wonder if I have what it takes. But you say in your word that "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength". Help me to follow you in full surrender. You don't want a half-hearted commitment. It has to be hot or cold, for you or against you, all or nothing. I don't want to hold back.
"The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash--along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant--dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ--God's righteousness.
I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it. I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward--to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back."-Philippians 3:7-14 MSG
