Theme verses:
Philippians 3:4b-12 Paul writes: “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead
Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. |
Meditation:  Paul’s thoughts about not yet having reached his goal take place in the context of his having seen that what he once thought was valuable is really “rubbish”. In essence, the goals of his past were garbage – at least in comparison with what (who) he now knows.
When we’re talking about goals, the first struggle is usually trying to figure out what the goal should be. Yes, there are situations in life where that part is a breeze. If you’re a football player, you know what the goal is. You get the ball; you take it into the end zone. But life isn’t usually that simple.
And the truth is that we may have so many goals in our lives that we sometimes lose track of what are the secondary ones and what are the truly important ones. For example, so many times when I see struggles in the marriage relationships of couples, it becomes clear at some point that other things – material stuff, one’s career, recreational activities, other relationships – have become the priorities in life over and above that relationship which really should be the goal.
Paul’s “credentials” were impressive. He was up there on top of the “goal–achievers list” – through birth, through his upbringing, and through his own efforts.
But Paul saw that clinging to those things would keep him from recognizing what the true and life-giving goal of his life needed to be – “knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
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