"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."
(philippians 1:21)

Life and death...two seemingly opposing forces. But in reality, they are united by one common passion.  Christ.  To live is to make Him known and to seek His supremacy and glory in everything I do, say, and am.  To die is finally to be stripped of everything else of this world that weighs me down and hinders me, and to just enjoy Him alone, fully.  You see, there is no losing in Christ. 

We do suffer on the Calvary road as we take up our crosses daily and die to ourselves...but that also serves to make Christ all the more glorified in our lives.  Suffering is not just a result of following Christ...it's the means.  We can only boast in the cross when we bear our cross ourselves.  Because it is only then that we take the focus from ourselves, and Christ and His cross is truly made supreme in our lives.

We have a distorted definition of love in this world.  It doesn't seem like we do, because our definition involves kindness and putting others before ourselves.  But while that is certainly good...our problem is that we have been somehow deceived into thinking that loving someone means to make much of them, to make them feel wonderful about themselves. After all, it's all about self esteem these days, right? But that is all wrong...and that's why our "love" these days seems to fail so often. Truly loving someone means doing what is best for them.  We were created to see and savor God...that's how we were designed. So to "love" someone by making him/her feel good about himself/herself is actually hindering them from finding the true joy and fulfillment they were created to find.  True love is to point another to God for everlasting joy.

I just wanted to share some of this of what God has been teaching me  through my reading of John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life. I highly, highly recommend reading it.