Philippians 3:7-8
I Count

The accountant bends over his ledger seeking to find profit that will last.
His work is to find some meaningful benefit of all his labors of the past.
He has an established set of values, that govern all the work he does,
And a pattern that he follows as he finally adds up all his sums.

“My family was of good stock, after all, can’t all you people see;
How great the world has been blessed, because of our superior family?
We had such a good religion, other folks looked up to us,
Wanting the kind of life we had instead of their awful fuss.”
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But after figuring out all that seemed to him to be so positive,
The accountant began to wonder, “What is left if I don’t live.”
Every point of pride he wrote down, and every religious action,
Never gave the worried accountant the least bit of satisfaction.

He realized the things he thought were so important then,
Had no lasting value if not a treasure laid up in heaven.
So summing up life’s account, the accountant had to say,
“Everything I thought was gain, was loss for a future day.”

Now he has new values; now his work is not vain,
For all his work is spent, to bring his Master gain.
The joy he gets these days, is not in a ledger full of things,
He is sharing in the blessings that God’s salvation brings.

The things he wants to know now, are the ways that he can share
In the power of Christ’s resurrection, and the suffering that he shares.
The goal of his life is to know his Lord as a man knows his best friend,
Assured that his new accounting ways have eternal profit in the end.