[SUB12] ATÉ QUE NADA MAIS IMPORTE - Luciano Subirá

On Philippians chapter 3, verses 7 and 8, Paul the apostle declares that “whatever were gains to me, I now consider everything a loss". He even says “because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things" There is a place in our relationship with Jesus that you and me must enter, like Paul the Apostle declared, where Jesus has not only a moderate importance. C.

S Lewis once affirmed that: “Cristianity, if true, is of infinite importance if false, of no importance. " And he concludes saying: “What it cannot be is moderately important. " I want to declare the same thing not only about cristianity, but about the person of Jesus, who he is and what he means to our lives.

we must enter this place that Paul the apostle entered, where everything else loses its importance, where everything loses its value before the value Jesus actually has for me and you. Some years ago the Holy Spirit strongly brought this phrase to my heart “until nothing else matters. ” that became a goal in my relationship with God.

It became a challenge to my own heart, about the way I should relate to the Lord. when the word of God speaks about our relationship with Him, it is always going to talk about intensity. for example, the Bible does not only say that we must love the Lord, but Jesus classified it as the greatest commandment in the following way: love the Lord your God with all of you heart and with all your soul with all your understanding, with all your strengths.

Jeremiah the prophet declares from the Lord “you will seek Me and find Me when you search for me with all of your heart. " So, we know that men exists, it was created by God so it could find Him. This was Paul’s message, when he preached at Atenas, on Acts chapter 17, he says: “from one man, He made every nation of men", a clear reference to Adam and he reveals the purpose why we were created saying “that they would seek him.

" mankind was created, it exists to seek God, although, if men wants to succeed on this search, if it wants results, if men wants in fact to reach God, he must understand the importance, not only of the search, but of the intensity. that is why God says trough Jeremiah: “you will seek Me and find Me when you search for me with all your heart. " in the christian walk, we cannot only love God, we have to love him with Total Love.

we cannot only seek God, we need to seek him with all of our hearts. the place of our relationship with God is not only where He has relevant or moderated importance, but where He becomes our everything, where He becomes the most important Person, where He becomes our greatest desire our true obsession. And I want to encourage your heart to question yourself before the Lord: what is the importance that Jesus has in your life?

Is He there just to make things better in some areas or did He become the center of all? When Jesus said we have to seek first the Kingdom of God and the other things will be added, he certainly set a focus: we live for the Kingdom of God. The other things, they come as an increase, they have their importance, otherwise the Lord wouldn’t promise to add them, but they’re not a part of what we can classify as essential.

We live in a moment where the way to relate to the Lord has to be rethought. we should not only be good christians. We should not only have a good testimony.

we should not only attend to church. We shouldn’t only have Devotionals. We need to enter a place where He is everything, what provokes us, what moves us.

On Psalms 27, the psalmist declares: “one thing I ask from the Lord, this only I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek his Temple. " He makes that thing the most important thing of his life, just relating to God. We can also learn, in that talk Jesus had with Martha and Mary.

One sat at his feet, Mary, therefore, Martha was busy, obviously with a good intention, wanting to please Jesus, to be a good host and to receive Him the best possible way at her house, I believe that any of us, putting ourselves in Martha’s place, would understand her concern, but her good intentions were not enough. Jesus said “Martha, Martha, you are worried about many things he says “but only one thing is necessary". He points to Mary and says: “she chose the good portion, and it will not be taken away from her.

” let’s think in Philosophy of Life therms, in a christian optic Jesus is saying that one thing is necessary one thing really matters it is to seek the Lord. The Word of God does not present an alienated lifestyle. The Bible doesn’t say we should stop living in a natural way on Earth, it doesn’t say we can’t work anymore for example to pray day and night in a uninterruptible way the Bible says that the one who’s unwilling to work shall not eat, but it shows that even though we live a natural life, our heart needs to be obsessed with Him, with His person.

What should move us day after day is this holy, this blessed obsession for the person of Jesus. Not only for having finding him one day, but to fully know Him, like Paul says on Philippians 3. He says: “I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it”.

He shows that even he could grow, he could advance in the relationship with the Lord Jesus and he says “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ” knowing Him more than I knew Him until know, strengthening this relationship, it makes anything that was important before stop being important, it completely loses its value. " The challenge to our hearts is to reach that place. Years ago, I believe it was the beginning of 2008, I proposed to seek God in a way I had never done before.

I decided I was gonna pray, read the Bible, fast like never before and I can say I broke all of the records and marks, if we can even talk that way, when it comes to spiritual activities. I decided I was gonna start the year fasting for 3 weeks only drinking water, I had never fasted for that long, not in that way, with that intensity. I decided I was gonna read the Bible multiple times that year and I even got to read it twice in a month on that year.

And all of that because of the disposal of saying:I want to seek the Lord more. But it was right after this fast, right after breaking these records, that the Lord confronted me. He said that the only thing I had gotten better was in fact, my performance, not my heart’s desire for Him.

There were moments where into the night, I was terribly sleepy, but trying to read the Bible because if I didn’t reach my daily goal, a certain number of chapters,I wasn’t going to fulfill the vows I had made, but the Lord spoke to my heart: “you're doing this with no pleasure. " What God expects from us is not a perfomance improvement. It is not only that we will spend more time praying, not only more time reading the Bible or fasting more than we did before so we can break our records.

He expects us to put more of our hearts on it than we had ever done before. And that there may be a greater desire of knowing Him, a greater desire of Knowing Him. Years ago, I was impacted by the story of a wife.

She and her husband had a certain argument, and the husband defends himself saying: "look, I’ve been married to this woman for 20 years and she always wanted me to go to the supermarket with her, and I never liked the supermarket, but the day I decided to do that, she complains as we go back home and she said that she didn’t want me to ever go to the market again. You can’t understand women, you can’t! .

” She defended herself, she looked to the Husband and said: “I never wanted you to go to the supermarket with me. " He thundered, he said there were witnesses, she reinforced it saying: “I never wanted you to go. " she said, "I wanted you to want to go with me.

" Ela diz: “If you’re gonna go like you did, grudging complaining about being there, showing it was more of a punishment or a chastisement, showing no interest in being there with me, of course I don’t mind if you never go again. " God made me remember this story. And what He spoke to my heart back then was: “I don’t want you to seek me, I want you to want to seek me.

" This is the key. This is what will make the difference. We need not only to seek the Lord, but to put all of us on this search.

What God expects to find in us is this desire for Him, for finding Him. This will make all the difference. When we enter this place, where seeking the Lord, knowing Him, finding Him in a deeper and more intimal way is in fact the most important thing of our lives and nothing else is as relevant as this, we’re gonna have reached it.

May the Lord give us grace. May He help us. May He guide us trough His Spirit so we can go deeper in the relationship and not only improve our perfomance.

When He speaks to the Church of Ephesians, in the Revelation letters, to the churches on Asia, he brings a very clear word, and he begins saying: “I know your works and your labor, your perseverance", he is highlighting that they had a high perfomance, therefore he says “but I have this against you, that you turned away from your first love. " It is not enough for us to have a high perfomance, the flame in our hearts has to be lit. May God bless us, and help us to reach this place where His heart is satisfied and we’ll always have a big smile from Him as we seek Him with all we have.