Published via Ecency

TUESDAY 21ST JANUARY, 2025

🎚 CENTRAL TRUTH:
Whatever you desire that distracts from or diminishes your quest to know Jesus better should be cast off like dung.

📖 BIBLE TEXT:
Philippians 3 :14-21

🔑 KEY VERSE:

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, if any love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15; 4:12)

🖊️ COMMENTARY
To appreciate the meaning of "minding earthly things", we need to go back to the beginning of this chapter and review a list of the things Paul could cling to but happily gave them up. These are not sins in themselves, but they can and are often obstacles to anyone focusing on the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, who is our glory, our hope and our life.

Selfish ambition, class consciousness, pride of material or intellectual possession, etc., are part of the list of earthly things.

Minding earthly things also means giving preference to things that are not sin but cause people to sin. On the list are those controversial things that do not edify but rather divide.

For those waiting for the return of Jesus, we might look vile to the earthly Christians, but we know what we are doing. We die everyday in order we might live also. We suffer with Him so we can reign with Him. We suffer self-imposed deprivations so we can please Him.

In Philippians 3:2, Paul testifies of how he was able to get closer to Jesus and experience His power. It cost him so much, and he counted his losses as dung" in comparison to what he was focusing on. In vv l13 & 14, he makes clear that he had not finished the race despite all he had attained. From verse 15, he urges us to join in this quest to know Christ and strive for the mark of the high calling. Would you heed his call and join in that great quest to know Christ better?