Above all

Recently in a sermon, I was reminded of the importance of thanksgiving in prayer-are there corners in my life that I fail to bring to God in prayer? Especially in thanksgiving? I decided to do a mind map of all the main areas of my life I could give thanks to God for:

This morning however, I was reminded of how we are to take up our cross daily, and offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to the Lord as our spiritual act of worship. I looked across my mind map again and asked myself: am I willing to surrender all these things for the sake of following Christ? Would I say with Paul,

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him... 

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

(Philippians 3:7-11)

How much do I long to "simply" know Christ? Would I consider every other blessing in my life a loss compared to this surpassing greatness? How often do our blessings become a distraction rather than a good gift from God increasing our worship of the giver-when we fail to love him above it all?

I put a rectangle around the blessing on my mind map that could never ever be taken away from me. That is-the love of God and my relationship with Him. May I surrender all other things into his hands, that I may follow and gain Christ.