“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.”

It’s not perfection, but the pursuit that we are after. So often people fail because, they feel like they have to be perfect. We won’t be, but that doesn’t mean we give up. We are no longer in a pursuit to be perfect; Christ won that victory. We now have the freedom to pursue joy and to run hard in that pursuit with all abandonment into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

“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, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained”. –Philippians 3:12-16

“Men are in a restless pursuit after satisfaction in earthly things. They will exhaust themselves in the deceitful delights of sin, and, finding them all to be vanity and emptiness; they will become very perplexed and disappointed. But they will still continue their fruitless search. Though wearied, they still stagger forward under the influence of spiritual madness, and though there is no result to be reached except that of everlasting disappointment, yet they press forward. They have no forethought for their eternal state; the present hour absorbs them. They turn to another and another of earth’s broken cisterns, hoping to find water where not a drop was ever discovered yet.”

Men have no forethought of their eternal state. They are madly, desperately, like ravaged animals, trying to find satisfaction, not full satisfaction, only satisfaction for the moment. They abandon all for the momentary delight, but do not find it, not even a drop. Oh! What madness that they even teach others, ‘This is the way of satisfaction and delight.’ Christ calls to this world, mad and blinded in their pursuit, and says, “I am the way, the truth, and the Life. I am more than satisfaction. Come to me all those who are weary. Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food.” And so we must abandon all things and all things and come to Him, “the author and finisher of our faith”. And though we may not see the full fulfillment of the promises as did Abraham, we still believe.