Philippians 3:12–16
Grace is a gift of God that we cannot earn by our effort or our worth. To be set free from the illusion that we can please God by our own strength and righteousness — that is what it means to rest in grace. This rest is not laziness. It is a power that moves us to serve God with thankfulness. Only when we truly understand grace and rest in it can we love others selflessly. To rest in grace is to loosen our fist and give ourselves over to the warm embrace of God’s eternal love. In Philippians 3:12–14 Paul says something that sounds contradictory but is true: we rest in grace, and that is exactly why we can run. He compares the Christian life to a race. He says, “… not that I am already perfect …” He has not yet reached the goal, and so he forgets what lies behind and strains forward to what lies ahead. In this race he puts spiritual discipline and a thirst to know Christ more at the centre, and runs with all his strength. When we know that God has accepted us in Christ in spite of our weaknesses, then we can run with thankfulness and with even greater eagerness.
How did Paul see the Christian life? On one side it is rest in the unearned kindness of God, where we rest in the work Christ finished on the cross. On the other side it is also a race. On one side we are secure about our salvation (justification). On the other side, that very security makes us strive continually to become like Christ (sanctification). And we wait for that future day when Christ will make our bodies like His glorious body (glorification). We rest in grace so that we may run a victorious race towards the perfection that is in Christ. This race is run not out of fear, but with strength received from His boundless love and grace. We must never stop and say, “I now know everything,” or “I am now perfect.” True maturity is the kind that admits its own imperfection and keeps moving forward with a thirst to know Christ more and to become like Him.
We must not get stuck in past sins, past failures, or even past successes. Our eyes must always be forward, on Christ. We do not run this race in our own strength. We rest in the grace of Christ, because it is He who has laid hold of us. But He has laid hold of us for a purpose — the purpose of making us like Christ! Are you walking around carrying the weight of the past? Are past mistakes pulling you back? Forget those things as Paul did, and press on in Christ. Christ has laid up a great prize for you. Rest in grace, and run this race with all your heart.
Prayer: Lord, give me strength to forget what lies behind and to run eagerly towards Your goal. Keep me faithful to the end. Amen.