If someone asked who you were, what would be the first description you’d run to?
Do you define yourself by your job, your family, your successes?
Recently, Victory Hollyfield from Engage Magazine looked at the Apostle Paul’s life and found that after compiling an impressive resume, he shreds it:
“If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 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 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. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
The Apostle Paul, Philippians 3:3-11
Victory concludes: “There is nothing wrong with acknowledging your earthly culture as it lines up with Scripture. Paul knew he was a Jew and owned that identity, but he boasted more of being a bondservant to Christ. Nothing compares to being a part of God’s royal priesthood.” Read more…