If I do not love Christ, I have nothing...

I count all things as loss, that I may gain Christ.

I believe anyone who holdfast to what Paul's conviction and life model is...he will be a remarkable man.

Gaining Christ.

Drawing to God can only get nearer and still near. And only still nearer. Jesus healed the man at John 5 so that as Christ puts "that he go and sin no more". This is what John Piper preached on last week.

Holiness, he says is not an option, it is a must. As he warned the man in John 5, "Lest something worse happen to you".

Sobering, doesn't it.

What God wants to say is this, that the pursuit of holiness is a necessity to every Christian. Gaining Christ is nothing more that loving God by setting yourself apart for God, that is to pursue holiness.

The pursuit of holiness is the "lifest" way of living.

If I do not love Christ, I have nothing. I think it is in Hebrews 12, that it reads a verse "Without holiness, nobody shall see the Lord".

So I believe apart from holiness..setting yourselves wholy and only to God is the surest pathway and the only pathway to gaining Christ. Or else you have nothing, this life or the life to come. It will all be burned up.