By Kim Black
Philippians 3:7-14 (The Message)
"Resolution: a decision to do something or to behave in a certain manner"
It's that time of year when many people begin making their New Year's resolution.
Instead of a New Year's resolution, I felt the Holy Spirit say to me "You have a New Creature resolution: Focused on the Goal."
And, this is where He led me:
"The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things we once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as Our Master, firsthand, everything we once thought we had going for us is insignificant—dog dung. We have dumped it all in the trash so that we could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. We didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when we could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God's righteousness.
We gave up all that inferior stuff so we could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering,
and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, we wanted to do it.
We are not saying that we have it all together, that we have it made. But we are on our way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for us. Friends, don't get us wrong: By no means do we count ourselves an expert in all of this, but we have our eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. We are off and running and we can not turn back."
Scripture taken from The Message. ©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.