August 11

Read: Philippians 3:12-15

Reaching forth unto those things which are before… Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded (Philippians 3:13, 15).

Let Us Be Thus Minded

Is there any place in the Christian life where I can honestly say, I have it made? Perhaps in heaven we may reach some such high plane, but even that is doubtful. How can a static heaven be satisfying to us in whom God has implanted the urge to grow? It is certain that to satisfy our deepest human needs here on earth we must keep always pressing toward goals that are yet beyond us. When yesterday’s goals become today’s achievements, the Holy Spirit lifts our vision to new heights to be scaled tomorrow.

Those who are entirely sanctified and filled with the Holy Spirit are often most conscious of the distance between their own present exemplification of God’s love and the vision of the ultimate possibilities of that love. Within six months of his death our beloved and saintly Dr. J. B. Chapman said publicly, “I sometimes find it hard to be as good a man as I know I ought to be.”

To be as good a person as I know I ought to be; to be more sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit; to be more generous with the limitations of my fellowmen — here there is reflected a great incompleteness. Here there is wide room for improvement. But this, too, is a part of Christian perfection — if there be within me an urgent desire to move as far and as fast as possible toward God’s ideal for me. Paul prays that this sense of incompleteness might be the attitude of all who are deeply spiritual: “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.”

Thought For Today

Paul denied perfection as a winner, but he professed perfection as a runner. — J. Paul Taylor