Philippians 3:12-14
New King James Version (NKJV)
12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Day 12
Progression instead of Perfection
I once heard the saying that life is a marathon rather than a race and now that I grow older I understand the statement more and more. As I have matured I have come to realized that life is all about stages, we learn as we grow. No one expects us to be perfect because we know that we all make mistakes. It is what we learn from our mistakes that cause us to progress forward in life.
We look at our journey with God the exact opposite. We think that once we began to walk with God, once we decided to turn our life over to Christ, that there is no longer any room for error. We must be perfect the moment Jesus enters our hearts or all is lost. Sadly, this very thing is what stunts our growth with the Lord. Once we prove not to be perfect we allow the enemy to move in and cause division between the heart and the mind. We become like Adam and Eve once they had taken a bite of the forbidden fruit, we become ashamed of our sinful nature and then we separate ourselves from the presence of God.
We talked about this on Day five when our topic was backsliding; however I felt the need to further the conversation because this is one of the major roadblocks that the enemy can through at us while we are trying to navigate our way out of the wilderness.
We must look at our spiritual life in the same eyes as we do our regular life. It is okay for us to strive for perfection, because we want to walk in the likeness of our Savior. However, we must realize that when we fall short of our goal all is not lost. This is what the Apostle Paul is saying in our scripture. He says that while he has not attained his goal of perfection, he continues to press on towards the goal. He says that he is forgetting what is behind him and straining toward what is in front of him.
This is what we must do. We must not focus on our perfection but instead focus on our progression. Ecclesiastes 7:20 says that there is not one righteous man on earth that does good and never sins, so we know that we will not be perfect. With that being said we also know that Psalms 24:16 says that the righteous fall seven times, they rise again. So when we are looking at our progression instead of our perfection, we can learn from whatever causes us to stumble and we can get right back up and move forward.
God knows that we are not perfect this is why he sent His only begotten Son to die for our sins. Jesus died and was resurrected so that we would be able to repent from our sins and start anew with no condemnation.
Our journey out of our spiritual wilderness is already hard enough. We need not compound it was the pressure of perfection. Let nothing stop us from pressing towards our goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Please join us tomorrow as we continue our journey. Until then God Bless,
James Anthony Love
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