Not so Simple Sunday: Moving Forward

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 3:10-14

It's not about what you have obtained.
It's not about what's in your past.

It's about what's ahead.

Moving forward.

Obtaining.
Straining.
Pressing on.
Being called heavenward.

Pursuing the things that are eternal.

Now I don't mean that our entire lives need to be about Heaven... or maybe I do.


Maybe Rob Bell wasn't too far off the mark when he said,

"With every action, comment, conversation, we have the choice to invite Heaven or Hell to Earth." 

Maybe the way we live every day, every single choice we make, determines how in tune with God we are.

I was at MANY summer camps this summer, and with EVERY group I led, I asked this question,

"Why are we doing all this? Why are we Christians?"

The answers were disheartening.

The number one response sounded something like, "So we can go to heaven and live with God."

Well... yeah.
But is that it?
Really?

Is Christianity really that simple, THAT cut and dry?

We live this way...
We say these things...
We go to our conferences and our churches...

SO THAT...

One day.
In either the very near, very distant, or somewhere in between future...
We can go to heaven and live with God.

Because I believed Christianity was about God coming to live with us.

There are a lot of things not right in the church these days.


But this isn't a post to address all of those issues. I want to see a mental revival in the way we view ourselves, God, and what this whole Jesus thing really is.

Because if our whole purpose of living is to just get somewhere else... Why live here at all?

Why go through the struggles and temptations and trials of this life if our whole purpose is to press on to heaven?

The answer is in the first five words of what Paul started this particular passage with:

I want to know Christ.

Jesus was born. Lived 30 years.

And then... he began his ministry.

Why the wait?
Why did God wait?

Maybe because Jesus was showing us... that living is first and foremost... our job here on earth.

“The Bible tells us that Christ’s full humanity is important because of the unique purpose of His mission.” -Joshua Harris

By living 30 years, before beginning his ministry, Jesus showed us the importance of developing ourselves.
Our person.

What makes us, us.


Jesus was defining what made him, him.

The Gospels refer to a lot of what Jesus did, what Jesus' job was, what his work was.

But even before all of that, Matthew, Luke, and even John define who Jesus is in the beginning chapters of their Gospel narratives.

Why is that so important?

“The person and work of Christ are meant to be kept together. You can’t grasp the significance of either without the other.” -Joshua Harris

We can't grasp the significance of who Christ is without seeing what he has done.
We can't grasp the significance of what Christ has done without seeing who he is.

We can't relate to an eternal God who transcends time and space if we don't take the time to feel the impact and the weight of time and space.

Time is just God's way of not letting everything happen all at once.

Time is God's way of letting us develop a relationship with Him, pursuing Him, loving Him, serving Him.
Here.
Now.
On earth.
Bringing pieces of Heaven down to earth.
Showcasing God off to the entire world.
Building His Kingdom, for His glory, by His grace.

And isn't it significant that he uses our very lives, not necessarily our words or deeds, but who he made us to be, to accomplish just that?

And so we're back to our first point: Moving forward.

"Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead."

In our minds we need to grasp this idea of God shaping us. Pursuing who God is making us to be.
Because though our job is to live life... HOW we live matters.

"Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it."-Rob Bell

Pressing on is all about understanding who God made us to be:

He made us in His image. (Gen. 1:27)
He prepared us in advance to do good works. (Ephesians 2:5)
He knows us before we are even born. (Jer. 1:5, Psalm 139:13)
He has plans for our hope and prosperity in this life, and life to come. (Jer. 29:11)

...and our reaction to that understanding makes all the difference.


Our past doesn't define us.
God does.
Our failures don't chain us down.
God frees us.
Our choices don't condemn us.
God forgives us.




Live a life knowing God...Really knowing him. Really straining to understand him.
And you will live a life knowing who God made you to be.


With all of that in mind... We don't have to give an answer of our whole life being about living with God in heaven some day, but rather living a life on earth, in the midst of evil and suffering all around us, and having the hope of knowing God, of knowing Christ, within us. We will have the hope of heaven within us, carrying it to the ends of the earth.

 “Being a Christian means being a person who labors to establish his beliefs, his dreams, his choices, his very view of the world on the truth of who Jesus is and what he has accomplished...”

“We’re either building our lives on the reality of what God is truly like and what he’s about, or we’re basing our lives on our own imagination and misconceptions.” -Joshua Harris

**Quotes taken from Rob Bell 'Velvet Elvis' and Joshua Harris 'Dug Down Deep'
See my review of 'Dug Down Deep' here.