Think, Act, Be, Day 24- Philippians 3:1-14

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Think, Act, Be, Day 24- Philippians 3:1-14

Forgetting what is behind

Everyone needs a good forgetter. Most of us have no problem forgetting our car keys or our computer passwords. We do keep a long mental list from the past that could be trashed. We need to cultivate the discipline of forgetting who and what we resent, worry about, and are ashamed of. We need to learn to forget words that were said unnecessarily and hurtfully.

Paul challenges us to “forget what is behind” by making a spiritual profit and loss list. He considers everything he possesses, has accomplished, and what others have done for him to a trash heap compared to gaining Christ. Those things and people aren’t garbage; but when compared to knowing Christ, they’re worthless.

We view everything that has happened—achievements, failures, success, and sorrows— as worthless because Christ has made everything worth it. He has created you as a new person and wants to know you even better. And by God’s grace, we will know him so well that we will soon find it’s been such a long time since we thought about that problem in the past.

Philippians 3:1-14
3 Finally, my brothers and sisters,[a] rejoice[b] in the Lord.

To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a safeguard.

2 Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh![c] 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God[d] and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh— 4 even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ,[e] the righteousness from God based on faith. 10 I want to know Christ[f] and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal;[g] but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Beloved,[h] I do not consider that I have made it my own;[i] but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly[j] call of God in Christ Jesus.