May 13

Philippians 3:16 (NIV)
16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

Have you ever been in a class in school and after the quarter was over you had an “A” in the class. The last thing you want to do after that is have a horrible second quarter and bring your “A” down to a “C”. Why? Because you would be wasting all of that time and effort of attaining the “A”.

Paul could be talking about two different things here, and they both warrant thinking about. We have certainly attained all things in Christ, because the Word of God says that we have been given all things. Living up to our inheritance, our ability to live with great power and blessing is something that God would encouraged us to do – right?

I can’t help but thinking about the other thought as we look at this passage. It is Paul who said that he hadn’t attained it all, but he presses on… The point here is that he has attained a certain level of living, a certain level of commitment. Paul has died to himself and his desires and really is living for Christ. He is even writing this letter from a jail cell – or rather a jail dungeon! How many times do we obtain a certain level of commitment with God and then go back to the pig pen? How many times do we get deeper in our experience with God, grow deeper in our understanding of Him, gain deeper revelations of life and His Kingdom, and then go back to live a “normal” Christian life? Let it be for you and I that we live to what we have attained, never again going back to the “old” life, which doesn’t represent a life of sin for all of us. For some it represents iving a normal Christian life, which has been surpassed by the work of Christ in us. May it be with us, that we, with the power of God, walk in relation to what God has worked in us, never again going back, but pressing on to the greater things.