Found In Him
What Philippians 3 says about our doing over being
There's a certain way I have noticed that I can measure my walk with Jesus, and it's easy to do it without ever naming it out loud.
We measure it like a performance review. Am I disciplined enough this season? Do I have my quiet time figured out? Do I have the right answers when someone asks me a hard question? Am I far enough along that I'm not embarrassed by where I actually am?
I've been doing this lately. Pressure showed up in a few corners of my life, nothing catastrophic, just the ordinary weight of uncertainty, and I noticed my soul getting tangled in a way I recognize. I'm not okay with not being perfect. Not okay with not having life figured out. Not okay with not having sharp discernment, deep communion, all the knowledge and wisdom I think a mature Christian should have by now. I'm not okay with being embarrassed by what I'm doing with my life, or with not having a plan, or with not feeling certain God is pleased with where I am. And underneath all of it is a quieter insecurity, that I'm not hearing from God the way I want to be, and that this means something is wrong with me.
That insecurity turns into shame. The shame turns into a kind of striving. Do the things so God will be proud. And every once in a while something will click and I'll feel for a moment like I've made it. Until the feeling fades and the cycle starts again.
If you've never felt any of this, this letter isn't for you, and that's fine. I've met plenty of Christians who are fully convinced they've got it figured out, who don't feel any tension between where they are and where they're called to be. I can't do much for those people, honestly, and I'm not trying to.
This is for the other kind. The one who's wondering if there's more. Who feels behind some days. Who isn't sure where God is in the middle of their doubts but knows, somehow, that there's still more to know. That's who I'm writing to, because that's where I keep finding myself too.
Asking to Be Fathered
When I noticed the tangle this time, I didn't try to fix it myself. I asked God to father me, to help unravel the parts of my soul that had gotten knotted, to show me what was actually true instead of what my anxiety was insisting was true. And he led me back to Philippians 3, a passage I've read more times than I can count, and this time a few things landed differently.
It's Not by the Flesh
"We who serve God by His Spirit who boast in Christ Jesus and who put no confidence in the flesh." — Philippians 3:3
I read that and had to ask myself honestly, what am I actually putting my confidence in? My ability to keep it together? My quiet time streak? My personality, my performance, my bank account, my intellect, my Sunday routine?
None of those things can serve God. Only the Spirit can. God didn't ask me to manufacture the thing I need in order to love him well. He gave it to me. He gave me himself. I don't have to go looking for straw to make the bricks like the Israelites under Pharaoh. If you're in Christ, you already have everything you need for a life of godliness, and it's found in the Spirit already living in you, not in some more disciplined version of yourself you haven't become yet. I think a lot of times our frustrations, depression, and general anxiety about our lives is because we put our confidence in ourselves and we're left dealing with the results of that.
The Father is trying to tell us that the very thing that we're trying to figure out is actually the thing that's gotten us into our messes. Our problem is our being in charge.
Reflection: What am I actually putting my confidence in today?
Counted as Garbage Compared to Knowing Him
"Whatever gains I had, I consider now loss. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ." — Philippians 3:7-8
Paul says something almost violent here. Everything he'd accomplished, and he'd accomplished a lot, he now considers loss, garbage, for the sake of knowing Christ. Our English translators were being generous with that word. The term Paul actually wrote is the Greek word skubalon, and it doesn't mean tidy garbage. It means something closer to feces. Not because his accomplishments were worthless in themselves, but because next to the surpassing worth of knowing God, that's the comparison Paul reaches for.
If you asked yourself honestly what the goal of your Christian life actually is, what would you say? Get to heaven? Become a better person? Those aren't bad answers. But none of them are the answer Paul gives. Paul says the goal is to know Christ. Not to know about him. Not facts, dates, lexicons, church doctrine. To know him. To know his heart and his mind. To be one with him.
Think of the best meal you've ever had. Steak, lobster, whatever you'd put on the table for a celebration. Now picture your dog walking over and squatting on the plate next to it. We'd laugh at the comparison. But we have to be honest enough to see this with spiritual eyes, because in the spiritual realm, this is genuinely the comparison. We get to know God, the greatest calling we could ever have, or we neglect it and spend our lives on our own accomplishments and failures instead. Our souls just haven't learned that yet, and God is patient while we do.
Reflection: What am I tempted to count as a gain that God is asking me to count as garbage?
Found in Him, Not Found Doing
"And be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith." — Philippians 3:9
Here's where it gets personal for me. A lot of my striving comes from imagining the moment Jesus returns and asking myself what I did with my life. I picture wanting to answer with something that I'm doing. I shared the gospel. I gave to the poor. I wrote something true. I loved someone well. All good things. But that's not the answer Paul gives. Paul doesn't say he wants to be found doing anything. He says he wants to be found being IN HIM. I'm still learning what this really means. But I know that it is received by faith, believing what God says about reality even when it doesn't feel true yet. All of this is by faith and not by sight.
Reflection: If Jesus came back today, what would I want to say I did with my life? What would he want me to say instead?
The Cost of Knowing Him
"I want to know Christ, yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. And somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." — Philippians 3:10-11
To know God is to know the same power that raised Jesus from the dead at work in us. That part I want. To participate in his sufferings is honestly the harder one for me to accept. To know Jesus is to consider everything else as loss, our reputation, our knowledge, our wisdom, our right to being right, our comfort, all of it nailed to the cross the way he paved the way and demonstrated for us. He said follow me, and he went to the cross.
If we're going to follow Jesus and actually know him, that road leads to death. We die to our flesh and to everything that is not Jesus, so that we can live unto God (Romans 6:11). Then, somehow, we are raised with him the same way God raised Jesus.
We sometimes treat this like a one time decision, something we said yes to once at a youth camp or a revival. It isn't. It's daily. It's a now but not yet.
Reflection: What am I still holding onto that he's asking me to count as already dead?
Pressing On, Not Trying Harder
"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead." — Philippians 3:12-13
Paul says plainly that he hasn't arrived. But he presses on, taking hold of what Christ already took hold of him for. Romans 6 says we already died with Christ, past tense, so we don't live for victory, we live from it. We get to participate in the now but not yet, forgetting what's behind and leaning into what's ahead, and what's ahead is simply more of him. This isn't a try harder mentality. It's the opposite of one.
Reflection: Am I trying harder right now, or am I pressing on from what's already been done?
Letting Go of the Wheel
"All of us then who are mature should take such a view of these things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained." — Philippians 3:15-16
I laugh a little reading this, because most of my immaturity shows up exactly when I return to trying to have control again. Paul says it almost with a wink, if you're thinking about this differently, God will make it clear to you in his time. God has a kind of humor sometimes of using the circumstances of life to help teach us. We sometimes really think we've got this Christian life thing down pat and I think He sometimes just chuckles. "Oh my Son, you still have much to learn but I'll make it clear to you." God is not threatening us, He's actually being very kind and patient. But He's willing to let us go our own way until we see where it's gotten us and are ready to give the wheel of our life back to Him.
"And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith." — Hebrews 12:1-2
But the beautiful thing is that it's not on us to sanctify our perfect outselves. I am not responsible to complete myself. Jesus started this and Jesus will complete it. All we have to do is just run, keeping our eyes on Him not by trying harder but by being fixated totally on Him.
So let me say this plainly, to myself most of all. It's time for all of us to be reminded. Let go of everything you think is important and lay hold only of Jesus. Lay hold of knowing him, abiding in him, as your only ambition. Seek first the kingdom, and trust him for everything else. It's time to get out of the driver's seat again, because that's where the joy is found.
"Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." — Psalm 73:25-26
If this resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it and even have a conversation!
