The Martyr Spirit

“That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:10-11) 

The knowledge of Christ in glory was the supreme desire of Paul’s heart, and this desire could never exist without producing an intense longing to reach Him in the place where He is.  

Hence the heart that longs after Him instinctively turns to the path by which He reached that place in glory, and earnestly desires to reach Him in that place by the very path which He trod.  

The heart asks, “How did He reach that glory? Was it through resurrection? And did not sufferings and death necessarily precede resurrection?”  

Then the heart says, “Nothing would please me so well as to reach Him in resurrection glory by the very path which took Him there.”  

It is the martyr spirit. Paul wanted to tread as a martyr the pathway of suffering and death, that he might reach resurrection and glory by the same path as the blessed One who had won his heart. 

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