“Yes, furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage) of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly]. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in order that I may win (gain) Christ (the Anointed One).” Phil 3:8 Amp
In the long plan of the Lord, there is great benefit for His Body to have lost everything and consider it mere rubbish. Only when things are considered lost can the Lord have the freedom to assert His plan and will in our lives.
When things are not yet lost to us (lost in that we have yielded, and given them over to Him), we keep them factored in, and they occupy a place of importance they should not.
Count everything as loss…
April 2017
I had a series of four dreams back in this timeframe, and only now are they coming into a fuller understanding…
The first dream was about rubbish…and the occupation of the body.
The first dream opens with me visiting Pittsburgh, PA. This is familiar territory as I was raised not far from here and initially went to college in Oakland.
The first part of the dream I am visiting someone who had been in ministry as a caretaker and maintenance person at a church we were previously on staff at.
The help I render to her seems insignificant. But as she was one who held keys to the facility, I take this as confirmation that this dream was from the Lord. That its entrance is from Him.
As I approach the area when this woman is living, I notice the raised structures of all the housing. You have to ascend ladders to gain entrance to every house. Older or infirm people and even packages are raised up with something like dumbwaiters. As you look down the street, on each side are rows and rows of ladders people must use, and all the lodgings are white, even luminescent…
Now I am heading back into the heart of the city to where I am lodging. I am on foot. Sunlight is waning and I am in a hurry to get back before dark.
I must ask directions however. But no one is able to help. In fact, the sense of real communication is not there. I ask the way but no one is able to reply. Every way I turn to find my lodging leads me further away…
As I continue my journey, I find myself in what seems like an industrial – almost mining section of the downtown city. I have entered a place where mining for coal has previously taken place and there are deep ruts that run like giant grooves sculpting the landscape.
Even though mining had been done, there are high rolling hills that ascend and I can see a yellow digging machine like a bobcat in the short distance. I make my way in the direction that will take me out of here and towards the downtown (I think) but I now begin to enter an immense series of rolling and cascading hills that seem to go off in all directions, creating a landfill or refuse/industrial park that has distinct sections.
Everything around me is manmade. Everything is a by-product of man’s efforts. Nothing here is natural or in a pristine, un-adulterated state. This landfill is massive!
One section rolls into the next and on and on as far as the eye can see. But the hills ascend so high that far vision is impeded.
I move into a section where some kids and adults with hard hats are occupied. The kids are busy exploring and moving through this section, almost like it was part of an amusement park. We are surrounded by rubbery circles, like tire inner-tubes or large washers, that cause steps to be bouncy and halting and irregular.
Everyone is highly absorbed in traversing and climbing, but they don’t seem to be actually getting anywhere. I become aware of the danger of this section in that you could slip down in between these rubber circles that are like synthetic playground material…. If you slipped down you could be totally lost and immersed in this debris field, though I don’t witness this.
The lighting is odd. I know evening is approaching, but there appears to be a dark ceilinged roof over us like a cave would provide. Or the sky is already dark. But there is a sense of something hovering close overhead.
There is artificial lighting with some of the adults carrying lanterns or headlights. Or else there are spotlights.
I have no sense of interaction with people other than continually asking directions which they seem unable to provide. It seems all effort and attention is focused on navigating and exploring this section, but no one is really progressing anywhere.
Through lots of effort, I however, have moved into another section as I ascended the mound of rolling rubber debris and have come into an area of ladders. They are fuschia-like pink against the backdrop of darkness. Everything is synthetic here. Like off-scourings of industrial refuse, like a landfill that goes on and on. Its immensity is staggering.
I am working hard to ascend these ladders. I can see people traversing as silhouettes across the top, but again I am struck by the endlessness of this pursuit. Still, I continue to ask when possible, “Do you know how to get to the city-downtown?” But no one appears to be able to answer.
I have moved through many varying sections, working and working relentlessly to move on. I am driven to get out of this massive refuse area of rolling hills and synthetic remains. Nothing here is natural. Nothing is unadulterated. People are captive to their sections as if nothing else matters. Each section with a different type of debris.
Somehow, I am able to move on. The others are content, as if they are not even aware of their captivity.
Somehow, I ascend a hill and way off in the distance I see an end to these hills. In that distant area before me is brilliant, sunny light, long grasses blowing in the breeze, and beyond I can see a shoreline for moving water.
Everything opens up. I make it over the last hill… And just as I would enter the grasses ahead, I wake up.
This is a picture of the current day church – the Body of Christ. We are gripped by our effort, activity, and production. We are even lost in it!
And yet we are called to consider it all as rubbish – to lay it all down, in order that we may win (gain) Christ!
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