Here is a saying that packs a wallop of truth: IF YOU ARE NOT CLOSE TO GOD GUESS WHO MOVED? We humans are a silly and selfish lot. Many of us have wasted time seeking fulfillment and happiness by chasing after the trinkets and temptations of this life rather than spending time pursuing God’s gift of life with Him. Do you know how silly a puppy looks when it tries to bite the air when you blow in its face? I wonder if that is how we look to God when He sees us striving after this life for fulfillment rather than pursuing a rich relationship with Jesus Christ. Listen to the words of Jesus in John 10:10, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” Want fulfillment in life? Want true joy? Pursue a closer relationship with the Lord. I have lived both ways. I’ve tried lots of things that have left me empty. I guarantee you that a closer relationship with the Lord will bring fulfillment to your life. I would not trade it for anything this world has to offer. Read Philippians 3:1-16 and even the brief book of Ecclesiastes if you are up for it. Then listen to Closer by Shawn McDonald. See you tonight for my final Friday evening study @ 7:00.
Philippians 3:1-16
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. Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. 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— though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 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; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 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 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 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.
All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.