Pressing the Reset Button
Pressing the Reset Button
Philippians 3:3-16 (New Revised Standard Version)
For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh, even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh. 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. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.
The scriptures tell us that no matter where we are in our lives that we can “reset” it in our hearts and minds.
No matter what Paul possessed or had accomplished, it was no comparison to what he had found in Christ Jesus.
Paul is describing his experience of being in Christ as something that has seized him, something quite outside of himself.
Christ has seized his identity and character and reshaped it in his likeness. Christ has seized his very life.
Once we’ve known what it is to be “in Christ,” we want more of that feeling of God’s holiness, God’s overwhelming love and grace; and so it does become the prize that we seek, a prize more important than any accomplishment the world has to offer.
Being in Christ becomes our goal, our greatest desire. The things of this world become more and more like rubbish compared to this desire to be in Christ.
The goal in life is to always pursue this feeling of being seized by Christ.
One way we can do that is to forget about the things behind us and reach out for the things ahead.
It’s about leaving those footsteps behind us in the past, no matter what those footsteps were, and reaching for the finish line, the prize.
No matter where our lives have been, it can be reset.
Our new focus can be the prize that we are all reaching toward, and that is God’s upward call in Jesus Christ.