For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
—Philippians 1:21
The Jesus-first life is not just a life of purpose. It is also a life of passion. And that’s built right into Jesus’ own words. When He said, “seek first the kingdom,” the word He chose for seek is a word that implies intense desire, a word that means to pursue with everything within you. Seek first the kingdom. This is Jesus talking about passion.
I love that word, passion. Don’t you just love being around folks whose faith in Christ is passionate, whose love for Jesus is alive and burning? I do. There’s nothing lukewarm about them. Their faith isn’t a duty they trudge through; it’s a fire they can’t contain.
That’s exactly the kind of passion the apostle Paul had when he wrote, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Weigh that sentence, because it’s staggering. For Paul, life and death had become options of equal worth. To live is Jesus. To die is Jesus. Either way, he couldn’t lose.
Where did a passion like that come from? It came from surrender. Having surrendered his life completely to the lordship of Jesus Christ, Paul found the glory and the beauty and the power of really living. That’s the great paradox of the kingdom: it’s when you surrender that you finally discover life. We think holding on to our lives is how we keep them; Jesus says it’s how we lose them.
Think about what that means for you. We spend so much of our energy clutching, gripping our plans, our comfort, our control, our very lives, as if holding on tighter were the way to keep them. But Jesus turns that instinct upside down. “Whoever desires to save his life will lose it,” He said, “but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” The open hand, not the clenched fist, is where real life is found.
That’s what passion looks like, a heart that has stopped hoarding its life and started pouring it out for Christ. We simply must seek Jesus above all else and above all others. And one day, when we get to heaven, we’ll pour out that passion forever, joining the great chorus around the throne: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”
So, I ask you to decide. Are you going to seek the kingdom of God with passion, pursuing Him with everything within you? Let “to live is Christ” become the banner over your days and live each one on fire for the One worth living and dying for.
SEEK IS A WORD OF PASSION, PURSUE CHRIST WITH EVERYTHING WITHIN YOU. LET “TO LIVE IS CHRIST” BE THE BANNER OVER YOUR DAYS.
