Philippians 3 -- Where Am I In The Race?

Paul was helping to clarify what the Christian life should be like.  We are to worship God through His Spirit and through our pride in Christ, never through pride in what we’ve done, for we can never trust in ourselves.  Just doing that likely means we are committing the sin of pride.

Paul says that he got over the so-called importance of the things he used to believe would draw him closer to God.  He found that there was really only one thing that could – knowing Jesus Christ.  And that knowing takes an eternity to accomplish.

Once he’d understood that, he realized that all those important things he’d lost and had once so highly valued were worth nothing after all.  He didn’t really lose, but instead infinitely gained by his choice to follow Christ.

Paul also realized that, although believing in Christ and His sacrifice for us on the cross gained us our salvation, there was still this lifetime of becoming like Him to be done, not out of duty but out of desire, and that became Paul’s life goal.  He saw it as a race – his only focus being what lay between where he currently was and his goal.  Everything that had happened before was past history.  It was only what he did before the end of the race that mattered.

That’s huge, because all too often we try to beat ourselves down and even disqualify ourselves because of sins in our past.  Yes, they had an impact upon us, but really all they did was affect where we happen to find ourselves at the moment in the race.  If we focus on Christ for the rest of the race, our sole desire will be to make up ground, not to stop the race and go back to examine where we started or ran off course.

What’s at the end?  Paul said, “Our homeland is in heaven.”  We started there and it’s important to finish there.  “We are waiting for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come from heaven.”  And when He does, by His power He will change our sin-filled human bodies into bodies like he now possesses, built to last for eternity and unsusceptible to the sin infection.

Father, thank you for reminding me that the only value in looking back is to worship and praise You for what You’ve done in my life.  The only things I’ve truly lost by following Christ are the things that didn’t matter in the least.  Keep my eyes on the goal, Father.  Don’t let me stray off course.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford