“Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) on your own grievances. Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedation. If you must read books, select them very carefully. But you’d be safer to stick to the papers. You’ll find the advertisements helpful; especially those with a sexy or a snobbish appeal.”
An eDevotion from Mike Sares, pastor of Scum of the Earth, a church plant in Denver, CO.
“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.” from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter three
Paul is talking about his life here. He is comparing it to a foot race. I don’t think the prize is a crown of gold or a special edition harp which he will be awarded in Heaven.
Just before this passage, Paul wrote about grabbing onto all that God has grabbed him for. He had been passionately writing about getting to know Jesus. The prize of which Paul writes, I believe, is two things: becoming who we are and fully knowing God, the great “I am.”
In heaven we will become all that we were created to be. Think of the talents we have wasted, the sins that have damaged our souls, the relationships which we cannot mend. Our prize in heaven is that we will finally be perfect and in a perfect universe. All our highest dreams will be within our reach and we will hold them at last. We will be a blessing to ourselves, to others, and to God himself — forever.
In addition to that, the greatest adventure of all will be to explore the love of our Creator. We will know God in deeper and deeper ways, and the relationship will continue unhindered for eternity. We will be falling in love with God without stopping. All our questions will be answered continually, as they come up. We will at last understand how wildly, and fully, and joyfully we are loved by the great I am merely because we are.
By His grace,
Mike
[Some formatting and linking done by me]
