Philippians 1:21-22 (NLT) For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better. But if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don’t know which is better.

If you were given a choice between life and death, which would you choose? I would venture to say that everyone would choose life. But not the Apostle Paul. For him, dying was better than living. It's not that Paul had a death wish. It's that he had gotten a hold of a truth, or better said, a truth had gotten a hold of him that transformed his life. That new life involved dying.

The truth of the matter is that Paul was already dead. His name before he got saved was Saul and his mission back then was to hunt down Christians to put them in jail. He didn't even mind if they were killed, as Stephen was right before his eyes when the Jewish leaders got angry that he dared to speak the truth that it was their own people who killed Jesus. Jesus appeared to Saul one day as he was on his way to persecute more Christians and his life was forever changed. But in order for him to live a new life, he had to say good-bye to his old one. He would no longer be Saul, the pharisee that persecuted Christians, but would now be Paul, the greatest evangelist that has ever lived. He gladly gave up his old life, which he regarded as nothing compared to the new life that Jesus offered him. In a sense, Paul was already dead when he uttered the words above.

Once you die to yourself and to the pleasures of this world, your mission here on earth changes. You mission ceases to be making as much money as you can to spend on all your pleasures and becomes just passing through this life doing what the Lord directs you to do and making disciples along the way until the Lord takes you home to be with Him. That's how it should be for you and me as well. While we still maintain our jobs and still take care of our families, our main mission becomes to love the Lord Jesus with all our hearts and souls and to serve Him by spreading the Gospel everywhere we go. In other words, Jesus becomes the reason why we live and is the reason why death becomes a lot more palatable. In Paul's case, it was so palatable that he preferred it because it would mean that he would go on to be in the very presence of Jesus in heaven forevermore, with no more pain, sorrow or suffering.

To the Apostle Paul, living meant fruitfulness for the Kingdom of God. While we may think that this kind of life was just for men and women like Him who are "special," it actually is for everyone who has had their eyes opened to the truth that we were created to have fellowship with God through Jesus Christ. That truth changes your entire perspective along with the trajectory of our lives. Paul would choose to be with Jesus as soon as possible to be with Him forever and ever. What would you choose?

Pastor Joey Vazquez