To be with Christ

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
(Phil 1:21-23)

It's interesting how you can read a verse and identify with it for many years, and not really "get" it, because you have applied your own eisegesis to it.

Fearing death

I've never really been afraid of death, perhaps because I was exposed to it at a young and tender age. My stepmother died when I was 4, my father when I was 10, my mother when I was 12, and both my maternal grandparents shortly thereafter.

When I started reading the Bible in earnest after I was saved at the age of 15, this was one of the passages that resonated within my heart. Death did not seem a very big deal to me, especially since I knew I was saved. I sincerely desired to "depart" - but I realise now that it was for all the wrong reasons: the hope of going to heaven, being with the heavenly Father (something that obviously appealed to me very much, given my background of having lost my earthly father at a young age), escaping suffering and pain on earth, and not having to struggle with sin.

It's all about Christ!

When I re-examined this passage last Saturday during cell group meeting, I was struck by how, all these years, I had missed Paul's message by a very wide mark. One thing was very conspicuously absent - and that was the person of Jesus Christ!

Paul's whole life was about Christ and dedicated to Him - "for me to live is Christ"; and "to die is gain" - why? Because to die would be to depart to "be with Christ" - the culmination of all his desires. He did not wish to depart in order to escape from suffering or the struggle with sin - that would be a Buddhist outlook! His main reason for wanting to depart was simply so that he could be with Christ and enjoy His presence!

It's a truth that God is bringing to my attention again and again, and which I still have a problem translating from my head to my heart - Salvation is a Person!

Remaining in the flesh (staying alive)

It is enlightening for me to note that Paul didn't mind staying alive, rather than how I had subconsciously misread it as a young Christian - that he had wished to escape from this earthly life, and couldn't wait to go to heaven (it's amazing how carelessly I read things sometimes). And his reason for staying alive? So that he could continue in fruitful labour for the sake of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the sake of the people he was ministering to.

That's a healthy rebuke to me. The only reason I should desire to stay on earth is not so I can enjoy more of life, but so that I can be engaged in fruitful labour for my Lord!

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
(Psa 73:25-26)

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order 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 comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
(Phil 3:7-14)