I've been asking God to open my eyes to this for a while now...for if I, who in the world has lost a great deal in life, how am I to possibly see myself as possessing all things?
I've got a hunch though: The more I lose, the more rejection I face, the more I notice something within me. A nagging, if you will, that tells me that in Christ whatever I lose in the world, whatever I am NOT in the world, I gain and I AM in Him!!!
What do you guys and ladies think specifically on the topic of "possessing all things?"
Justin I think it is the very thing Paul actually came to at the end of his own roads in life. The very things that we find out about at the end of all our struggles to figure it out. It is right there staring us in the face at the end of every road when we come to it. There are MANY questions , questions that are really good ones and tricky ones. It would seem like God were not even there in the midst of these questions. We keep thinking that God is losing the battle for the evidence of His good or His existence or His involvement in our lives. It looks as though He doesn't do anything to help us, to protect us, to care for us. It seems like He never even planned for things we get ourselves involved with or get stuck in both as a society and as an individual. It seems like He is out to get us, or wants to manipulate us or some other scary thing.
The point is though that everything we go through only ends up playing into His hands as He knows and sees all things and has provided everything we need in Christ for this life and the next. Again, it just does not seem this way when we are under the powerful sway of human logic. One day we will no longer see Him with this cloudiness but, we will understand Him as He is in fullness. We can not hurry up that process, unless He grants us that some how. Nor do we get encouraged to to anything but, to live according to what we learn in and through it all. All the questions, doubts and etc...
It's almost poetic in a sense the loss of all things and then the realization or revelation that what's of the greatest value we find we have! That is Christ!
I think for myself, the 'greatest' thing within Christ that I've come to possess is myself! It's certainly more of a peace and contentedness in Him. The world may 'possess' and 'love' it's own, but that very same 'love' is entanglement and bondage to the soul! But, Christ, He gives me an identity that is born in freedom! I 'lost' so that He could reveal Himself, and the riches of the completeness that I found in Him alone! 
Christ in you, the hope!
Hello my dear friend Justin!
I just love hearing from you, for I see his life becoming more and more real to you (in your awareness, that is). There is such a religious push to "claim" things in the name of the Lord, but it seems to me that so much of this naming and claiming consists of the stuff that passes away. For me as well, I have discovered that this shadowland we live in and all of its riches cannot define what we are nor what we possess. It is the mind of the flesh that assumes its life consists of what it possesses, but what we have in Christ far surpasses any of that. The shifting sand of this world convinces me more and more of my true life in God. As much as I have hoped to find less rejection in this world, I have also discovered it can be no other way.
I could try to convince myself that it makes no difference what others think about me, but the fact is that it has. And in this, I rejoice because there is something within me that knows why. I cannot be accepted by the mind of the world, or of those in it, because the life in me is despised by the world. I often sense that fine line, that thin veneer that hides the hatred of so many around me. I know that it would take very little to unleash the wrath. Whew!
Jim
I have determined to know nothing among you except Christ, and him crucified!
Christ in you, the hope!