To Live Is Christ to Die Is Gain

by Matt Chandler

With Lydia, the gospel gets at her heart when Paul engages her intellectually. With the slave girl, the gospel gets at her heart when Paul engages her spiritually.

It did not matter what anyone did to this man, he loved God and continued to show it in every possible way.

There are people today who cannot think of themselves except by what they do, and perhaps this man is no different.

the gospel achieves, not just of unholy individuals to a holy God but superficially incompatible people to each other! Jesus takes strangers and makes them a family.

This is the natural tendency of all people. But the gospel is not natural.

the gospel doesn’t just transcend and transform our human institutions and divisions; it also transcends and transforms our circumstances.

He can see his troubles and imprisonment only through the lens of grace-fueled optimism.

This is not the kind of Christianity any of us end up with except through a profound experiencing of Christ’s cross applied to our lives.

He’s seen that living could be nothing else but

In the logic of the gospel, there are no alternatives to Christ. Every other option is no option at all. When everything considered valuable in life is seen to be nothing in comparison to the glory of Christ, you learn rather well that Christ alone is worth living for. Christ alone is worthy of an entire life’s affections and devotions. He is worthy of so much more, in fact, which is why Paul completes his declaration “to live is Christ” this way: “to die is gain.”

the purpose of life while we are alive is to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, which holds the promise of life everlasting.

Don’t you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now.”

Knowing this, who cares if friends or enemies mock you? Do not be “frightened in anything by your opponents” (Phil. 1:28). Be willing to get on a plane and go to dangerous places. Be willing to take the pay cut at work to do what’s right. Be willing, no matter who your opponent is, to be fearless.

To be opposed because of our faith is a sign of our opponent’s destruction.

the preaching of the gospel afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted.

grace implies “in spite of.”

selfish ambition and conceit come from the idolatrous belief that we are due more than we have received and that we’re worthy of more honor than we’re getting.

every time we think of ourselves as better than others

or look only to our interests, we are essentially saying, “I am God.”

Mercy is given to the tax collector Zacchaeus. Why? Because he feared Jesus. He had respect for the Lion of Judah.

Those who fear Christ receive the mercy of salvation precisely because the perfect submission of Christ to the Father is credited to them.

attainments—if you clean up your life and manage to somehow never struggle ever again—but you never get Jesus, you’ve totally lost.

I find myself far too easily satisfied with my relationship with the Lord, far too easily satisfied with where I am spiritually. Why don’t we long for the Lord like David did?

I think we often misunderstand our faith and put all the weight on our conversion, with very little expectation for what comes afterward.

We beat sin only by pressing into Jesus, knowing Him, and chasing Him.

There is grace upon grace to be had in Him. So much grace, you can’t use it all up. If we broken people will come to Christ in faith, we will receive an infinite supply of grace. This is why we pursue Christ above all—because He is more than enough. He will always be enough.

Never be satisfied with where you are in the area of spiritual growth. Cultivate an insatiability for more of God by examining your weaknesses, beholding the perfection of Christ, and finding good examples of strengths you want to develop.

forget anything behind him that might rob him of his pursuit of Jesus Christ.

“Take heed as you stand lest you fall” in this sense means “don’t live off the victories of yesterday.”

Refusing to forget these things, in the end, this is just a subtle form of pride. In doing this we assume that we’re the one person who is too much of a problem for Jesus. We’re the one nut He can’t crack. We’ve got the one situation for which the cross of Christ is inadequate. Oh sure, He can save Paul, He can deliver Peter, and He can make all things new. But not me! I’ve got grace’s kryptonite. And this is how refusing to forget what lies behind is prideful.

One of the best ways to get grace wrong is to believe it means we don’t work in the Christian life.

“Grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning.”

Where there’s not striving, toil, or pursuit of holiness, power encounters are actually held cheaply.

If we truly believed we were saved apart from our works, we would work harder purely out of gratitude and worship.

The three means of gospel centeredness Paul highlights are these: engaging in discipleship, remembering our citizenship, and anticipating heaven.

It’s our responsibility to find people we can disciple, and it’s our responsibility to be discipled.

So this desire for identity never really goes away; it just changes.

In this sense, idolatry says, “I will not be defined by God; I’m going to be defined by other things like my car, my house, etc.” You start holding on to those things tightly so that when God wants them, you won’t give them up because you think they define who you are.

When we live as if this world is all there is, as if all our hope is in stuff that rusts and decays, we are not holding true to the gospel we attained but to treasures that don’t last. And so one way to stay focused on the gospel is to remind ourselves constantly of our true citizenship, of our identity.

Is it a stretch to think that we should live for that day?

divided church is a terrible witness. Where people see in a church anger, dissention, inability to reconcile, and the holding of grudges, they do not see Christ as beautiful.

Why do the mature rejoice in the Lord always? They can be reasonable in the midst of whatever situation they find themselves in precisely because the Lord is always at hand.

If our theology does not drive us to worship God in Christ, it is pointless.

And then I think about this: not only is everything that exists His, but He can make more of anything out of nothing anytime He wants. And He sustains it all by His power.

God is not glorified when you act happy about horrific things. He’s glorified when, in the deepest possible pain you experience, you still find a way to say, “I trust You. Help me, because my heart is failing in my chest. Help me! My son is Yours. His soul is Yours. His life is Yours. You loaned him to me for Your good to begin with. And I know I’m supposed to hold him loosely, and if you take him home, he’s Yours … but I’d like to keep him.”

here is what filled his mind and his heart every step of the way: the peace of God that passes all understanding. That’s what marked him. Not anxiety for his wife, not anxiety for his children and his grandchildren, not anxiety for me, not anxiety for the church, not a bit of stress about anything else. He knew. We talked about this. I got to watch it unfold. I got to watch a man die well, filled with the peace of God that passes all understanding.

If you will be honest about your life, you will admit that God has never failed you. He has never let you down. He may not have always given you what you wanted or orchestrated your life according to your desires or taken your advisement on His providential care for you, but when it comes down to it, He has never, ever failed you.

This is not about being thankful for the loss. It is about being thankful for having had the gift. It’s about remembering that God is good and that He does good. That He gives and takes away and at all times His name is and should be blessed.

You can’t worry if you’re giving thanks.

mature, godly love is a truthful, orthodox, doctrinal love.