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Not Perfect

                 Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.(Philippians 3:12-14)

 

One of the things we sometimes hear as Christians is accusations that we are hypocrites. I think people assume that if we call ourselves Christians, we assume that we are perfect. What’s more, they assume that we’re perfect and are delighted or disgusted to discover that we aren’t. When we discover (again) that we’re still not perfect, we add tend to be dismayed and disgusted.

It not only disgusts me that I’m not perfect, but it disgusts and dismays me how little it bothers me that I’m not perfect. I’m more upset about giving a wrong answer than I am about being a wrong person.

But even Paul wasn’t perfect. He didn’t pretend to be. But he had a good plan. He wasn’t going to get hung up on the things in his past (or present?) that weren’t as he thought they should be. Instead, he was going to focus on the future. Paul wrote of forgetting what lies behind. I don’t want to make too big a deal about my treatment of the past failures, because that would prevent me from forgetting, but I need to be more active in my rejection of them as a model for my future. The focus needs to be on reaching forward and pressing onward.  

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