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👉🏼 (Reading: Philippians 3:12-16)
📜 ""Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,""
Philippians 3:13 (NIV)
📋 ""In life, it is important to aim higher than the level where we find ourselves. We shouldn't be content with our present achievements and rest on our oars.""
In today's focus passage, the Apostle Paul expressed his dissatisfaction with whatever he had achieved in his pursuit as a servant of Christ. He felt that there was a higher goal to achieve, so he declared, "Brothers, I do not consider myself vet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead."
Paul pictured himself as an athlete in a race, putting forth all his strength and pressing on with determination and concentration in order to finish the race and win the prize. His aim was to reach and fulfil the goal that God set for his life (v14).
Such determination is necessary for all of us. Throughout our lives, all kinds of distractions and temptations, such as life's worries. riches and evil desires threaten to choke off our commitment to Christ.
But we must not take our eyes off the prize of being with Jesus forever. That means "forgetting what is behind," including the corrupt world and our old life of sin, and "straining toward what is ahead"-our final salvation in Christ.
Run the race to win God's prize.
🔑 Key Lesson: There's a prize of eternal life for Christians to win.
🛐 Meditation and Prayer: Lord, help me win your prize.
📚 Further Reading: 2 Timothy 4:6-8.
◼️ The Bible in One Year: Jeremiah 12-14.