Iron & Altar

"I have come to consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." - Philippians 3:8

Paul had a resume most men would keep framed, brother. Circumcised on the eighth day, of the race of Israel, a Pharisee's Pharisee, blameless under the law. He lists it out in today's reading and then does something a man rarely does with genuine accomplishment: he calls the whole thing loss, garbage, next to actually knowing Christ.

That is not false modesty. A steward who has built something real - a career, a reputation, a name people respect - is the one man most at risk of confusing the account with the owner. Paul's credentials were not fake. They were simply not the point, and holding onto them as though they were would have cost him the one thing that actually mattered.

The shepherd in tonight's Gospel leaves ninety-nine perfectly accounted-for sheep to go after the one that's lost, and the woman turns her whole house over for one coin out of ten. Neither of them is running an efficient operation. They are both describing what it looks like when the thing lost matters more than the account staying tidy. A steward's own death is the day his whole resume gets set down next to Paul's, and none of it - not the credentials, not the tidy account - will be what he's finally known by.

Name one accomplishment you're quietly proud of that has started to matter more to you than it should. Say it out loud tonight, then say Paul's word for it: loss, compared to knowing Christ.

Lord, my own resume tempts me the same way Paul's tempted him. Let me count it as loss, and let knowing you be the only credential I actually need. Amen.