Pressing On To Possess That For Which Christ Jesus First Possessed Me

15 Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. 16 But we must hold on to the progress we have already made.

17 Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. 18 For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. 20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. 21 He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.

On The Way… (vs 12-14):

After the beautiful passage about becoming righteous through faith, and Paul’s deep heart cry “I want to know Christ!”, he continues to clarify for his friends that He has not arrived. He is still “on the way”… “I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”

“I press on”… here comes the effort. Here comes the work, the hard work, flowing out of the faith that begins the relationship. We hear Paul’s impassioned words, saying (if I may elaborate somewhat), “I want to know Christ!! I want to experience His power!! God has made me right with himself through faith, and I have been so deeply moved by God’s love for me that I desperately want to be all that I can for Him… so I’m going to try my hardest, I am going to press on, I’m going to focus, I’m going to keep the goal before me and run hard to get there… when I think of how much Jesus loves me, how could I do any less?”

Notice this beautiful, insightful phrase: “I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.” See it? Jesus “possessed” Paul, for something incredible (“perfection”), and that happened “first”, so now Paul is going to “go for it”, and keep “going for it”. See how clearly if flows out of, as a response to, what God has done first? Critical point here to understanding this whole idea of Christian effort – it must be a response to God’s love, not any attempt to earn God’s love. That is what has to be the inner motivation of our hearts, or we become like the Pharisees Jesus was always confronting who did all the “right stuff” on the outside but whose hearts were hard and far from God.