Philippians 3:12; Press On

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”

Paul says that he has not already obtained all this…what “this” is he talking about?  In the previous passage he talked about his desire to know Christ, to share in the fellowship of his sufferings and to attain to the resurrection from the dead.  That is Paul’s goal and when he wrote this letter, it had yet to be attained.

Paul shouldn’t be too hard on himself because I don’t know if anyone could ever fully obtain that goal, at least on this side of heaven.  The gospel is boundless, we can never comprehend it in its all-encompassing complexity.  But isn’t that the type of goals we should set?  Grand, sweeping goals that are worthy of our time and our effort?  As followers of Christ, I think we forget that we have the Spirit of God residing within us to empower and enable us so that we are able to do all things through Christ.

We should dream big dreams.  We should reach for things that far exceed our abilities.  We should step into life boldly knowing that the Creator of the Universe is on our side.  If God is for us, who can be against us?  We should love extravagantly, serve ridiculously, and give hilariously!  Isn’t that what God has done for us?

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of a child in a manger who would grow up to live the perfect life we could not live, die to pay the penalty for our sins, and rise again to defeat death so we can have a relationship with God for now and evermore.  And that same Jesus says these astounding words,

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” – John 14:12

Um, what?  We were created to do good works which God has planned in advance for us to do. (Eph. 2:10)  Those works will be along the lines of what Christ did and some will be even greater.  Not because we are so awesome, but because the Holy Spirit resides within us doing the work of Christ through us.  Astonishing! 

Paul knows that he has not arrived, but instead of lowering his expectations or giving up, he pressed on.  He spent his time and energy taking hold of the gospel of Christ that had taken a hold of him.  Are you spending your time doing the same?  Or are you distracted by the thousands of things that divert our attention away from Christ? 

This Christmas I challenge you to pray one prayer over and over until you get answer.  “How can I be used to spread your word and bring glory to your Name?  What good works do you have for me?”  And if you are really bold, a second one, “What am I doing that is distracting me from that?” 

Pray bold prayers and see how the Lord comes through.  Have a very Merry Christmas!

“My hope and prayer is that the body of Christ in America will awake with holy boldness, a boldness content neither with silence nor mere words but that backs up those words with action and results.” – Frank R. Wolf