Philippians 3:12-14 “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” This episode talks about how you can live your spiritual life more intentionally if you set goals to do so. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
What Is Your Ultimate Goal?
Philippians 3:12-14 “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
I think I may have mentioned this before, but in case I haven’t, I love the beginning of a new year, even the beginning of a new month. I love it because it gives us a chance to decide what we want to do that month. It gives us a chance to live intentionally that month or that year. I wonder how many of you listening to this episode set yearly, monthly, or daily goals? When I looked it up online it said that less than 3 percent of Americans have written goals. I used to write New Year’s Resolutions each year. I would start the year off so strong and then by week 3 or 4, I would lose my motivation and stop. Then I started to write yearly goals, but write what I would do each month to help me reach my goals by the end of the year. I was definitely more successful doing this, but I still didn’t do great.
Then I joined something called Big Life Mentoring. It changed my life. Pamela Crim, the head mama, the person in charge, our leader, introduced me to a goal setting method that has made it so much easier to reach my yearly goals. She has us set daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals and annual goals. She has us fill our an After Action Report at the end of the month so we know what went well and what didn’t, this way we can plan better next month. She also has us write down our monthly highlights, so we can remember the good that happened that month instead of focusing on the bad. This is why I love the beginning of each month. It is a new chance to reset. To look at what didn’t work well last month and fix it, right now, instead of waiting until the end of the year. Have you ever looked back at the end of the year and wondered where the time went? Wondered what you did in that year of life? Have you ever looked back on a year and wished you did more, or wished that you did things differently? Making monthly goals can help.
You may be wondering what this has to do with today’s verse. The author of this verse says, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” This is the ultimate goal that I believe we are all reaching for. Is this something you want? Do you have a goal of reaching heaven one day? What are you doing to reach this goal? I heard something the other day on the Bible in a Year podcast that keeps coming back to me over and over again. It was in November or December, so I am not sure what book Father Mike was reading from. However, in his commentary he told us to think about how hard Olympic athletes work to win their medal. He said they are working that hard to earn a medal that will sit on a shelf and after some time people won’t remember their name. Then he asked why are we not working that hard to reach our goal of eternal salvation?
What a powerful question if you think about it. What are we doing to reach our goal to get into heaven? Is that a goal of yours? Have you thought about it before? What are your spiritual goals for this year? Do you want to spend this year growing towards the Lord or away from the Lord? Are you actions moving you closer to Him? We all tend to think we have plenty of time. We will read the Bible next year. We will join that Bible study when we have more free time on our hands. We will say the rosary every day after we retire. We have lots of plans of how we will honor God sometime, just not right now. However, we don’t know how much time we have left here in this world. Time goes so quickly. It is the beginning of a new year and then you blink and it is the end of the year. It is crazy how time works and it seems the older you get the quicker it goes.
Another message in this verse that I feel is important is when it says, “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.” This is where some of us get stuck. We get stuck in our past. We focus on the things we did wrong, or the things that happened to us. Sometimes we think that our past sins are so great that they can’t possibly be forgiven and so we are reluctant to look towards the future. We fear that the future doesn’t hold anything good because of our past. Or, maybe we aren’t worried about our past sins, but we look at how life has worked out for us in the past and we struggle to have hope that anything would change. We tell ourselves that it has never worked out before, so why would it work out this time. St. Paul is telling us in this verse that he is not looking back, he is forgetting about his past and straining toward what is ahead. St. Paul had a lot of sins in his past. He had done a lot of things that he was not proud of, and yet he didn’t let it stop him from straining toward what is ahead. Are you going to let your past stop you?
I would like to leave you with these questions and hope that you give it some time today to think about them. Is your goal to have eternal salvation in heaven? What are you doing to strive for that goal? God is forever reach out to us, loving us, helping us, calling to us, pursuing us. What are you doing to pursue God? Are you actively trying to grow closer to God, or are you passively waiting by the sidelines, hoping it will just happen? Your salvation isn’t based solely on your acts, but God is calling us to follow His commandments and to love Him and our neighbors. Are we being intentional about doing this?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to strive to be closer to you. We don’t want our past to get in the way, please help us let go of the things we need to let go. Please help us to live intentionally and help us to know what we need to do to grow closer to you. Lord, help us to be open to you and all you want to do for us and with us. Help us to cooperate with you in all things. Give us the grace of faith and trust and any other graces that we may need. Lord, we love you. You are so remarkable and I am sure we don’t tell you that enough. We are so grateful to you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!