Perpetual Motion....
Philip. 3:12-16 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. [13] Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, [14] I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.
[15] All of us 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. [16] Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
There are few things that beat the taste of fresh water. I don’t mean the chemically enhanced stuff that comes from your taps, or even the over priced confidence trick that is bottled water, but a clear crisp mountain stream on a hot day when you’ve been toiling up a hill. But when the stream starts to dry up and the flow of fresh water is reduced and it turns into a stagnant pool then the taste of the water, and your appetite for it decreases….
I think Paul, in these images of striving, is telling us that here about our walk with God. We can never think we’ve made it, we can never stop seeking to become more like Jesus everyday, there is always room for us to get better. If we think we’ve made it then we stop striving to move forward, and we stop seeking ways to get refreshed by Jesus. We become like a stagnant pool.
A stagnant pool doesn’t actually stay the same. Over time it deteriorates. And for those of us who for whatever reason have stood still in our walk with Jesus have found, this walk starts to worsen too rather than stay constant. We are not called to stay constant though, we are called to grow. In fact Paul tells us that we have to live up to the level we are on – we cannot go backwards. Keep on running forwards….
[15] All of us 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. [16] Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
There are few things that beat the taste of fresh water. I don’t mean the chemically enhanced stuff that comes from your taps, or even the over priced confidence trick that is bottled water, but a clear crisp mountain stream on a hot day when you’ve been toiling up a hill. But when the stream starts to dry up and the flow of fresh water is reduced and it turns into a stagnant pool then the taste of the water, and your appetite for it decreases….
I think Paul, in these images of striving, is telling us that here about our walk with God. We can never think we’ve made it, we can never stop seeking to become more like Jesus everyday, there is always room for us to get better. If we think we’ve made it then we stop striving to move forward, and we stop seeking ways to get refreshed by Jesus. We become like a stagnant pool.
A stagnant pool doesn’t actually stay the same. Over time it deteriorates. And for those of us who for whatever reason have stood still in our walk with Jesus have found, this walk starts to worsen too rather than stay constant. We are not called to stay constant though, we are called to grow. In fact Paul tells us that we have to live up to the level we are on – we cannot go backwards. Keep on running forwards….
posted by Gordon at
10:19 am
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