Comparing Jesus to other Beloveds

So I've been working my way slowly through John Owen's Communion with God. In case you're really interested, I'm reading the abridged version put out by Banner of Truth. The full scale version can be found as a part of a collection of Owen's Works. In the Banner of Truth edition of Owen's works, Communion with God is found in Volume 2. If you have an extra $400.00 sitting around, I would go all out and buy the full 16 volume set (but that is just me!). If you're looking for another more accessible (digestible?) version of this book, I'd also recommend the abridgment that Justin Taylor and others put together. You can find that here.

This book is a goldmine. Owen clearly wrestles with God's Word in order to understand it, but he also has such keen sensitivity and Biblically-informed awareness of the human heart. I find myself being challenged, encouraged, and convicted on just about every page. I just finished the chapter discussing how believers hold communion with Jesus through grace, and the chapter closes like this:

"Let us then, receive Christ in all his excellencies and glories as he gives himself to us. Frequently think of him by faith, comparing him with other beloveds, such as sin, the world and legal righteousness. Then you will more and more prefer him above them all, and you will count them all as rubbish in comparison to him" (pg. 60).

Think about this with me. When was the last time you stopped and compared Jesus to everything else that clamors for your affections? If it's been awhile, stop and do it now. Compare Jesus to everything else you love, desire, enjoy, etc. Maybe you'll compare him to your favorite pastime, your spouse, your job, that thing that you want but just don't have. The more you make these kind of comparisons the more you will prefer him above everything else. The more we engage in comparing him to others, the more excellent he will appear to us, and the more like rubbish the rest of our "beloveds" will appear. It seems from Philippians 3:7-11, that this was the apostle Paul's regular practice.

Paul says, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."