LEAVING THE PAST BEHIND
Opening Prayer
As I come to your Word today, Father, help me to understand the truths in your teachings; use them to change me.
Read PHILIPPIANS 3:1-11
No Confidence in the Flesh
3 Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. 2 Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Footnotes
- Philippians 3:9 Or through the faithfulness of
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Look back at the people and places that have shaped your past.I never once thought about the words of my nineteenth-century school song. Bizarrely, it was titled, ‘All the past we leave behind.’ Once a year, I gustily sang about taking up the task eternal, conquering, venturing, being a pioneer. In other words, forget about schooldays, looking boldly to the future.
Paul would never forget his heritage. As a Jew he was proud to belong to God’s covenant people, Israel. He conscientiously kept the law. He genuinely wanted to please God. But he came to realize this heritage was not enough. These Jewish opponents in Philippi who insisted that Christians should be circumcised had gotten it seriously wrong (v 2). That issue had already been settled in the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:5-11).
However, in comparison with knowing Christ, he described his Jewish heritage as garbage, using a strong word (v 8). To be gloriously ‘found in Christ’ meant suffering and loss. It meant knowing the power of Christ’s resurrection, being raised to new life in death (vs 8,9). We sense that words failed him!
Our own backgrounds, schooldays, and life experiences, good and bad, shape us. But in the light of the ‘surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord,’ our past fades in its significance. Belonging to him shapes everything (v 8).
Apply
Reflect on the events and influences that have made you who you are. How has Jesus Christ transformed you?
Closing prayer
Lord Jesus, I confess that my life does not always testify to the power of your resurrection. Help me, so that what I do and say proclaims its transforming miracle.
Book and Author Intros
Extras
Click here to sign up to receive the EXTRAs via email each quarter.
© 2024 Scripture Union U.S.A. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission is prohibited.
Discovery is published in the USA under license from Scripture Union England and Wales, Trinity House, Opal Court, Opal Drive, Fox Milne, Milton Keynes, MK15 0DF.