“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:2121For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)). How sweet is the love which the Holy Spirit gives to the heart that is centered on Christ! We are too little conscious of the deadening effect on our spiritual life in allowing any object or desire but Christ. How often it seems to be taken for granted that a brief time after conversion is the only time when first love is due and is to be expected!
What bright contrast with all such thoughts stands the record we have of the Apostle’s experience! Was it not meant for us? God never intimates in His Word that the saint must droop after conversion, that love, zeal, simplicity of faith must become increasingly poorer and weaker.
No doubt there are dangers the early days, when much is thought acceptable through lack of spirituality, have theirs as do later days. But where there is full purpose of heart in cleaving to the Lord, He gives a deepening (not a weakening) acquaintance with Himself.
It is not, “To me to live is for the gospel or even for the church,” but, “To me to live is Christ.” To have Him as the one absorbing, governing motive of the life, day by day, is the strength as well as the test of all that is of God.
“To me to live is Christ” seems to me much more than to say, “To die is gain.” It is the very pith of Philippians—Christian experience. In this epistle above all others, it is the development of how we are to live Christ.
W. Kelly (Philippians, adapted)