IBS Application for Philippians 3:12-13

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead...”

Paul lived life in the manner we all ought to try to live life. We have all fallen short of the standard, but Jesus has shed His blood for us that we might have His righteousness for ourselves and by made pure by His great act of love. We are all still in the process of being cleansed, however.

This was Paul’s perception of things: that Jesus had already bought Paul with the price of His own life, and that Paul, having been called to be righteous and holy, needed to seek the righteousness of Christ in order to reach that goal. But this couldn’t happen without Christ, because as Paul has already said in the verses prior to this passage, his righteousness in the flesh was rubbish compared to the standard of righteousness that Christ had both set and met.

So, we can meet the standard, but not on our own. We have to obtain the righteousness that comes by faith. This isn’t obtained by any means of our own, but because we’re given this righteousness by Christ as a gift of grace. We cannot earn it, no matter what we do. And though we are covered by the blood of Jesus, we still have to deal with the consequences of our sin, namely that we still commit sin. Though in the eyes of God, we have been made righteous, because of our sin and because we still live in the flesh, we cannot obtain the fullness of righteousness we’re called to have until we go home to be with the Lord in heaven.

We cannot obtain this righteousness in it’s fullness while we are yet on earth, but we can walk with Jesus, bearing our own crosses as best we can until that time, ever relying upon the strength we receive by the Holy Spirit during that time, because our own strength can never be enough to bear the weight of our own sin. We’re promised that God will grant us the strength to stand in the face of our sin and resist it should we call upon Him to strengthen us, even though we’re bound to falter every day. He is also faithful to forgive us of our sins, and cleanse us of our wrongdoing if we are truly repentant.

No one that is yet living on earth is without sin, and therefore, no one has fully attained the resurrection from the dead, just as Paul hadn’t while he was still here. But like Paul, we need to be willing to throw off our old lives in sacrifice for the good of others and ourselves, because it is by doing this that Jesus is able to begin making us whole. We need to fight against the devil and his ilk so that the process may not be hindered and we can walk with Jesus in the manner He has called us to.


For my application, I will continue to pray that God would reveal to me the sins that I need to let go of that I might finish the race ahead of me strong and fast. I will also ask that today God would grant me both strength and consciousness of my sin that I might resist the devil, and call upon the Lord today that I might not sin against Him. I will try to do this for the next couple of days as well.

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