Philippians 3:7-11 – Pursue Christ

In these verses, Paul candidly shared the one holy ambition that he had. It was the ambition of pursuing Christ in all His fullness. In verse 7, Paul recollected the encounter he had with the Lord that transformed his life. Now in the light of this encounter, everything he had attained through the Law and his self-effort, he reckoned them as a lost cause.

In verse 8, he used the word “rubbish” to describe his past attainment. In using this word, he provided the contrast between his past and his present life in Christ. This same word is translated as “dung” in another version. It literally means the leftovers of a meal. In essence, Paul was saying that for years he had fed on the Law, tasted it and was somewhat satisfied. Then in Christ, he had a much better and more complete meal. Having tasted what is far better, he now had no desire to return to partake of the leftovers.

Paul declared that he only longed to be found in Christ and possess the right standing with God, obtained by faith in Him. Today, God is still the source of our righteousness. It is obtained on the basis of faith. Hence, like Paul, we should not try to work for that righteousness by striving to keep up with the demands of the Law by our self-effort.

Since his priorities were sorted out, Paul now had only one consuming passion and goal: To pursue Christ to the very end. So in verse 10, he boldly declared that desire. In this experience of Paul, we discover a vital ingredient for spiritual progress. It is the necessity of spiritual hunger. The readiness to know more of Christ is determined largely by one’s appetite for Him. Here we see the huge appetite of Paul to know Christ. Paul listed three things in his desire.

Firstly, to know Christ became the compelling and driving force in Paul’s life. To him, Christ was his life and knowing Him was everything in life. His desire was to know Him personally, experientially and intimately. 

Secondly, it was to know the power of His resurrection. Here Paul yearned for the same power that exerted in Christ’s dead body and brought life to also operate in his life. In his whole daily existence, he hungered for that power to be made available to him. 

Thirdly, it was to know the fellowship of His suffering. What did Paul mean when he said that he wanted to have the fellowship of Christ’s suffering? He was saying that he yearned to have the fellowship with Christ that suffering would bring. 

Besides, he also wanted to be “made conformed to His death,” What exactly did Paul mean? He meant that he was crucified with Christ and his nature had died and he now longed to attain the resurrection from the dead. What he was saying is this: he longed to be able to experience the resurrected power of Christ in his daily walk in his mortal body.

Paul fully understood that the righteousness he had was granted by grace and attained by faith. In his new status, his one desire was to experience sin losing its grip on his life more and more. How about us? Let’s be divinely empowered to live a life where sin has less and less grip over our lives. Let’s obediently walk in the power of God’s grace being guided constantly by the presence of His Spirit.