"Don't Waste Your Life"

I have been slowly working through John Piper's "Don't Waste Your Life" book.  It has been very challenging, and I wanted to share a section from it.

The Christ-Exalting Paradoxes of Life
     A life devoted to making much of Christ is costly.  And the cost is both a consequence and a means of making much of Him.  If we do not embrace the path of joy-laden, painful love, we will waste our lives.  If we do not learn with Paul the Christ-exalting paradoxes of life, we will squander our days pursuing bubbles that burst.  He lived "as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything (2 Cor. 6:10).  The Calvary road is costly and painful, but it is not joyless.  
When we embrace with joy the cost of following Christ, His worth will shine in the world.  The cost itself will become a means of making Christ look great.  The apostle Paul had one great passion in life.  We have seen him say it several ways: to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2), to boast only in the cross (Gal. 6:14).  

Our Shame and Our Treasure
     (referring to Phil. 1:20-21)  Notice the way he (Paul) makes this clear in verse 20: "It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed."  Stop here just a moment.  Shame is that horrible feeling of guilt or failure when you don't measure up before people whose approval you want very much.  It's what the little child feels in the Christmas program when he forgets his lines, and the other kids snicker brutally.  I remember those horrible times.  Or shame is what a president feels when the secret tapes are finally played, and the foul language and all the deceit emerges, and he stands disgraced and guilty before the people.  
     What is the opposite of shame?  It's when the child remembers the lines and hears the applause.  It's when the president governs well and is reelected.  The opposite of being shamed is being honored.  Yes, usually.  But Paul was a very unusual person.  And Christians ought to be very unusual people.  For Paul, the opposite of being shamed was not his being honored, but Christ's being honored through him.  "It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that...Christ will be honored in my body."  
     What you love determines what you feel shame about.  If you love for men to make much of you, you will feel shame when they don't.  But if you love for men to make much of Christ, then you will feel shame if His is belittled on your account.  And Paul loved Christ more than he loved anything or anyone.  "Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." (Phil. 3:7-8).
     Whenever something is of tremendous value to you, and you cherish its beauty or power or uniqueness, you want to draw other's attention to it and waken in them the same joy.  That is why Paul's all-consuming goal in life was for Christ to be magnified.  Christ was of infinite value to Paul, and so Paul longed for others to see and savor this value.  That is what it means to magnify Christ--to show the magnitude of His value."

(from "Don't Waste Your Life" by John Piper, 63-65)