Day 31: Friday, April 5, 2019
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 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.
12 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. 13 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, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
No matter how great the pedigree, it pales next to the promise. The degrees on the wall, the books on the shelf, the quotations we can reel off and the names that we can drop are less than the life of Christ within us. The victories won, the villains prosecuted, the numbers posted, the sacrifices we make are far less than the sacrifice made for us.
To climb the mountain ought to lead us to know the Maker of mountains. The times we fall ought lead us to the One who lifts us up.
Help me let go of any worth apart from You, Christ. Help me to let go of that which I would grip so tightly, whether it is my authority, my righteousness, my legalism, my perspectives, and anything else that monopolizes my soul.
May we each press on towards You, Lord, and toward what is ahead.
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Yes.