Picking colors and Chocolate syrup 🍂 Pressing on

Philippians 3:12

¹² Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. 

Paul is telling us what his motivation is… and he’s not referring to the resurrection… he is referring back to verse 10.

¹⁰ that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;

He is telling us that…

It’s not that I have exhausted the riches of knowing Christ, or that I as yet know all the power of His resurrection, nor have been perfected so that I no longer need the fellowship of His sufferings… No, it’s that I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of me.

This was Paul's motive, to achieve all that Christ desired when He laid hold of him on the road to Damascus.

Paul is saying: That he wanted to lay hold of Christ; that He might use his life as an instrument to lay hold of everything that He had in mind when He met Paul on the Damascus road. Paul wanted his life to fulfill the purpose of Christ’s coming, that we might all be together at the resurrection of the dead.

Remember what the Lord said to Ananias when He sent Ananias to Paul to baptize him…

Ananias didn't want to go because he was afraid because Paul had been persecuting the church…

But the Lord said to Ananias, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of My name."

Paul is saying, "the thing that motivates me in everything I do is that I may so give myself to the Lord and that I may lay hold of Christ so He may lay hold of me and everything He had in mind when He saved me."

This is was Paul’s purpose and this his motivation for living…

You see, the ultimate goal of the Christian life is to become conformed into the very image and likeness of our glorified Savior Jesus Christ.

And Paul knew that like every other believer, his sanctification was a life-long process, which would only be completed when he finally stood in the presence of Jesus… 

And every believer is called to run the race that God has set before them.

Every Christian has a specific purpose that God Himself has called them to achieve. Each one of us have our own unique goal to attain. A

And that goal is purposed and planned by the Father, As Philippians 2:13 tells us; “for it is God who works in each of His children both to will and to do that which pleases God.” 

The call of God for all His children is a life that is being conformed into the image and likeness of the Lord Jesus;

A life that is seeking to live godly in Christ Jesus, until it is no longer I [or you] who live… but is Christ Who lives in us [in you and in me]; and the life which we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved us and gave Himself for each of us.

Yes… Life happens… And we must press towards the goal of our calling which is the responsibility of all Christians.

And our objective in life should be to finish the race that is set before us and seek to attain to conformity to His death … which is death to the self-life … so that the life that we now live is an unsoiled reflection of the beauty of Christ in us. 

And this leaves us with a question that we each must answer… 

That is,

“Are we pressing on to lay hold of Christ Jesus and His purpose for our lives?”