Great bods, super cars, good God.

Philippians 3:1-11

            A few years back there was a show similar to "the housewives of...." but it involved a group of gay men in New York City. It was called the A-List and it was interesting for a while. There was every variety of person from good and decent to bitchy conniving queens. Like I said, interesting for a while. Invariably they all worshiped at the same trough, either bars or good looks.

          Granted, these are things we all boast in but this was a bit over the top - like any self respecting gay would be! One need only go to any gym to see no necks and people worshiping if not boasting in their bodies. I am very happy to see the sign at  Planet Fitness which proclaims it  a "no judgement zone" and even have a "lunk" alarm.

            We boast in so many things and I have played my part. I do not have the body but I have been graced to be a steward of many gifts over my life and I am quite talented in certain ways - something else people may boast of.

             The time is coming and in fact is here when we find that the things we boast of, the material things we strive for will be rendered unimportant. Life dishes out such cruel fates . An operatic singer who loses their voice.  A thoroughly active person rendered immobile by illness. It almost seems torture.  Just recently in the news was a story of a football player who took a baseball bat to his exotic car.  Say what?  To me that almost seems blasphemy. But it goes to the heart of what I am saying. This man apparently did not find happiness with the material, certainly something I, as a car lover would have difficulty not boasting in. 

             When we leave this world we will have nothing except that with which we came in. What we have accumulated in the intervening years will matter little. The only 'things' that will remain are the memories and love we leave in the hearts of those that we leave behind. What part did we play in God's plan of love? How did we impact the world with our own very presence and love? 

           There ain't no hearses with luggage racks and don't think a gold coffin will take us very far either.

Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. 

To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a safeguard.

Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh! For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh— even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard 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 one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.