A simple thing as a container of grease can open our eyes. A bold, middle-aged man once walked into the Center of Hope Bike Ministry rolling with him his black Kent bicycle, which like him saw better days. Yet, the bicycle was well-loved by this man because it was all that he had. In our initial conversation, I learned he biked to Sioux Falls from New York City and had been living on the streets for quite some time. He did not desire to live as most. Rather, he was perfectly content at that time to be a homeless traveler enjoying life on his bicycle. After a summer working with him on his bicycle and enjoying conversations about Jesus and life, he told me that he was going to start biking south to escape the winter months. He gave me a small container of grease to use on the bicycles we restore for guests. “Why give me this grease?” I asked, “You may need the grease in your travels.” He replied, “The weight of the grease would slow me down.” His response made me pause, and Paul’s words in Philippians 3:13-14 rang true in my heart: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Often, the loads we carry, regardless of how small the load might be, slow our momentum in our pursuit of Christ.
Earlier in Philippians 3, Paul wrote that he counted everything as a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus (3:8). Everything else was dung to him. To describe his pursuit of Jesus, he spoke in a language that the Philippians would have understood. He spoke as if he was a runner “straining” forward to win the prize, which was to know Jesus fully. The Philippians were quite familiar with the Olympian games. Hundreds of thousands of people every four years came together to watch the best of the best compete against one another. The most anticipated event was the running race, which was one of the first events of the games. The name of the whole Olympics that year would be the name of the victor of that race. And Paul uses this language to describe the significance of knowing Christ!
As nonprofit pastors who meet with our guests one-on-one every day through our pastoral counseling program, we have found that one of the reasons why many of our guests struggle with a variety of forms of poverty is that they carry with them a load they were not meant to carry. Maybe a death in the family led them to addiction on the streets. Maybe a trauma from their youth continually haunts them, crippling them in their adult lives. Maybe the shame and guilt of being an absent parent led them into isolation. Our hearts break for our brothers and sisters who feel trapped and hopeless because of the heavy loads they have accumulated over the years. Yet, we remind them that their identity is not in the brokenness of their pasts. Rather, their identity is ahead of them in Jesus! With Christ, reconciliation can happen! With Christ, healing will happen! With Christ, the loads we carry don’t feel as heavy because you recognize that He hung on the cross with those loads heavy on His heart. When we recognize that reality, we can strain forward with intensity to Jesus for He and He alone paid it all for us to live life, not in our brokenness, but in Him.
Forgetting what lies behind means that every day is a fresh start. It means that we must focus on our present walk with Christ and not look back at our past brokenness. The pains of the past are no match to the fulfilling future you will have with Jesus.
Questions to consider: How badly do you want to know Jesus? Are you “straining” forward in your pursuit of Jesus or are you always looking back at your past? What is slowing you down in your pursuit of Jesus? Are you keeping your eyes on the prize?
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