“Get up into the high mountain” (Isaiah 40:9)

Our knowledge of Christ is like climbing a mountain. When you’re at the base, you don’t see much: the mountain looks only a fraction of the size it really is. As you climb the foothills, the view enlarges. As you go up higher, you see the country for four or five miles around, and you’re delighted by the expanded view. Go up still further, and the scene gets larger and larger, until at last, you reach the summit. Only then can you look north, south, east and west.

To the north, you see clouds raining on a forest. To the south, a shimmering sea. To the west, you see a snake-like river and the smoking chimneys of a manufacturing town. To the east, you see boats floating on a lake. All these things please and delight you, and you say, "I never imagined these things when I was at the foot of the mountain”.

The Christian life is like that. When we first believe in Christ, we see only a little of Him. The higher we climb, the more we discover His beauty, and start to “comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height” (Ephesians 3:18). But what happens when you’ve gained the summit? By the time you get there, your opinion  of things you once thought important has changed. The one thing left is what you gave into His hands before you started climbing …. your salvation.

Paul, when he was old, sitting grey-haired in a dungeon in Rome, could say with complete assurance, “I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8).