Chapter 3, Verse 13 “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,”
Paul is at once disclaiming having achieved his goal of being one with Christ and His resurrection and yet claiming that he will get to that goal. From Paul’s perspective he wasted a lot of time and energy fighting against the Christ and His resurrection but he isn’t going to live in the memory of his battle. He has been forgiven and given a new goal and he is going to put his all into achieving it just as he did his former goal. Now that he knows Jesus in a personal upfront way he can’t do enough to please Him. Jesus has accepted Paul, a former persecutor, and made him one of His.
Paul knows who he was and who he is and that he has been given a new birth in more ways than one. Now nothing is as important as the higher calling of God in Christ. How he longs for the Philippian brothers and sisters to join him in that pursuit. He is providing them a model of how to get that accomplished.
Task for Today: Time to stop and take a good look at where we are in our journey. We haven’t obtained our prize yet but we mustn’t give up. Have we made mistakes? Yes, we have but like Paul we should forget them and turn the other way and reach out to claim the prize. Today, make an effort to visualize the goal. See Heaven before you, stretched out into eternity. Don’t you want it to be real? Sure you do. So press on to make it your own.
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