When five missionaries were martyred by the Auca Indians in Ecuador, some newspapers and magazines considered the tragedy to be a great waste of life. While it did bring sorrow and grief to friends and loved ones, subsequent events proved that their deaths were not a waste either for them or for the world.

The words of Jim Elliot were true: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

The quest for “things” is robbing people of joy, and this includes Christian people. We want to possess things, and then we discover that things possess us.

The only way to victory and joy is to have a spiritual mind and to look at things from God’s point of view. Like Paul, we must be accountants with the right values, athletes with the right vigor, and aliens with the right vision. “I count … I press … I look” are the verbs that described Paul—a man with a spiritual mind.

Verse for today: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

Also read: Matthew 6:19-21; Hebrews 13:5.

Action assignment: Read Philippians 3 and especially note verses 8, 14 and 20. Take the words “I count … I press … I look” and write out Paul’s philosophy of life. Ask God to make you an imitator of Paul because he had the right value system.

WARREN W. WIERSBE
www.backtothebible.in