Lent
April 5, 2019
Scripture Reading: Philippians 3:4b-14
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. –Philippians 3:7-14
Fully becoming the Body of Christ in the world today is a journey with lots of twists and turns. I must confess I test as being highly goal oriented on the Myers-Briggs personality types so committing to only processes or tasks is a challenge for me. My brain understands the idea of making a commitment of striving to righteously function in all that I do. My whole being, however, longs for reaching a final goal. The problem in that is I am then not happy until I have another goal to attain. The way we goal oriented people must function is to set interim steps so we can have our goal and keep it to. I have considered what Jesus would be on the Myers-Briggs type indicator and my best guess is that he was fully goal oriented and fully process/task oriented.
Paul in his striving to obey Jewish law perfectly leaned toward being task oriented. Christ challenged him in his journey by making him consider to what purpose he was striving. I think he came to realize that individual righteousness is important but if it serves no purpose toward sharing God’s love with others, it leads to nothing. Or at least that what I think he is saying in 1 Corinthians 13.
Prayer: Lead us toward your vision of a kingdom rules by love through both our commitment to spiritual disciples and our continued quest to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Amen.