As many of you know, for years now the Lord has allowed me to preach a Revival Meeting each week. Recently in these Services I have been focusing on Paul the Apostle. (I should say focusing on him again!) He is certainly one of my heroes!

I think no one else (except our Lord) exudes this type of devotion, reverence, worship … “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21, King James Version.

Such sentiment is only the result of God the Holy Spirit filling one’s life and controlling one’s very being!

In these dark (and darkening) days of apostasy, departing from the Christian faith … this Paul-like adherence to our Lord Jesus Christ is going to be essential.

My I encourage you this morning to pray Psalm 119:18 in regard to our Text verse? Ask of the Lord this request … “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.”

The deeper we plumb the meaning of such profound (on the surface simple, agreed) verses as Philippians 1:21 … the more we learn and the more we feel challenged by its example.

Here it is again … “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

This much I know already … Jesus is worthy of such loyalty, such obsession, such glorification!

This much is certain as well. If I can (via the Holy Spirit’s Aid) implement the verse’s first half (“to live completely for Christ”) … the latter half will come to pass … “gain” or reward or satisfaction upon death!

A godly old Preacher used to say … “Never sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate.”

Live for Jesus, with Jesus today.

And some tomorrow, the day you die, will indeed be a blessing, a promotion, maybe even a coronation!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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