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Paul begins with a clear and urgent reminder: “Rejoice in the Lord!” He warns them to watch out for those who place their confidence in human effort. True worship comes by the Spirit of God, and true confidence is found in Christ Jesus—not in anything we can achieve on our own.

If anyone had reason to trust in human effort, Paul says, it was him. He lists his credentials—circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, a Pharisee who obeyed the law without fault. Yet he counts it all as worthless compared to the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord. Everything else is loss. He has discarded it all so that he could gain Christ and become one with him.

Paul no longer relies on his own righteousness through obeying the law. Instead, he has become righteous through faith in Christ—a righteousness that comes from God and is based on faith. His deepest desire is to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead, even sharing in his suffering and becoming like him in his death, in the hope that he will experience the resurrection from the dead.

But Paul is honest—he has not already achieved these things. He has not reached perfection. Instead, he presses on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed him. Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, he presses on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called him heavenward in Christ Jesus.

He urges all who are mature to take this same view, to live up to what they have already attained, and to follow his example. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their minds are set on earthly things, and their future is destruction.

But believers belong somewhere else. “We are citizens of heaven,” Paul declares, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.

With this hope, Paul calls them to stand firm in the Lord—focused not on what is behind, but on the eternal glory that lies ahead.

Verse of the Day: Psalm 150:6

Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

Question of the Day:

Is God the Center of your life?