“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 for me.”
~Philippians 3:12 (NIV).
Paul has here, not reached perfection, but Christ Jesus has. This is an important juncture of the Spiritual premise we attain and always come back to.
The goal is what makes this venture of ours perfect, not our actuality. We take an awed-filled humble pride in the fact that Jesus completed something for us we couldn’t touch. Nothing can touch this Divine thing in any other way—yet we’ve been given the ‘keys to the City’—the City of
Seeing the goal of perfection is a very real standpoint we’re to approach and take on-board, though critically we know, perfection is not ours until we pass into eternity.
Ours is the goal. His is the Perfection. Never the twain shall meet.
But the heavenly expectation, now that we have the keys to the City, is we “strain” toward what is ahead, leaving the darkness and shackles of sin firmly behind us. Pressing on to the goal is gazing ever heavenward as these feet of ours remain firmly grounded in ‘the now.’ We’re transformed perfectly in this transaction that sees us set on the goal.
Like when we synchronise watches, we stay in-time with the Lord our God on this; the goal is our perfection.
And this is joy for us. For we keep in step with God this way. We please him in our faith (Hebrews 11:6) to abide to the goal. And the goal is maturity (1 Corinthians 13:11). We’re in training to one day be ready to take the mantle for which we’ve been forever destined.
© 2010 S. J. Wickham.
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