Reordering Our Loves
The Hidden Freedom of Detachment in Philippians
We are currently journeying through the book of Philippians as a church, and one area where the Spirit has been quietly at work in me through this text is learning to reorder my desires — or perhaps better said, to reorder my loves.
It’s striking to notice that Paul is not anti-world. Rather, he has detached himself from false sources of identity. Paul helps us see that spiritual maturity is not learning to hate the world, but learning to love Christ so deeply that lesser attachments begin to lose their power over us.
Below is my own paraphrase of Philippians 3:7–11:
Because Christ has become everything to me,
I have released all the things the world once taught me to treasure.
I refuse to let them have control over me.
Nothing compares to knowing Christ
and being found completely in Him —
not trusting in my own goodness or attempts to make things right,
but discovering my true life in Christ alone.
Oh, that I might know Him deeply —
to fully experience the power of His resurrection,
to share in His sufferings and the way of the cross,
so that whatever it costs,
I may share in His resurrection life
and one day be fully resurrected with Him.
Notice how Paul loosens his attachment to the things of this world and slowly reorders his desires. This transformation does not come through willpower, but through continually reorienting his heart toward Christ.
The passage reveals a progression: Paul releasing himself from the very things that once made him feel secure: status, achievement, certainty, and identity rooted in performance. Christ is no longer useful to Paul’s life; Christ becomes his life; the singular focus of his pursuit.
There is something deeply freeing about loosening our attachments, not through suppression or discipline alone, but because we are beholding something far more beautiful than what we are surrendering.
Paul ultimately releases outcomes, reputation, safety, and certainty — the very things we so often place on the throne of our hearts.
Consider this: when Christ becomes your life — when He becomes everything — circumstances lose their authority to define you.
As I write during the season of Lent, I’m reminded how practices like fasting, self-denial, and willingly embracing discomfort begin to loosen the quiet grip the world holds on our souls. In releasing what we once depended on, we slowly discover a deeper contentment, one that is not dependent on circumstance.
Detachment, in the Christian life, does not lead to apathy. It leads to freedom. The less Paul needs the world to validate him, the more freely he is able to love within it.