DCLM HIGHER EVERYDAY 31 DECEMBER 2021 — Press Toward the Mark
DCLM Higher Everyday 31 DECEMBER 2021 Devotional by Pastor W. F. Kumuyi —Press Toward the Mark
TOPIC: PRESS TOWARD THE MARK
TEXT: PHILIPPIANS 3:12-16
12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
16 Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.
MEMORY VERSE: “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (PHILIPPIANS 3:14).
MESSAGE:
In a piece of advice to believers, Tony Fox says, “This is the time for us to make the necessary adjustments if there are things we need to change in our lives so that we may bring glory to God.”
Also Read The Determined David
Receiving eternal life in God’s presence in heaven is the “high calling” to which Paul is referring in the verse above. To press toward it, therefore, means to exert deliberate, maximum effort for the purpose of attaining it, just as a runner in a race drives for the finish line.
The Christian must continually strive toward that goal through service and obedience, and in love and gratitude to God, for the final salvation.
Of course, the possibility of eternal life in heaven for the Christian is there only through God’s grace and Jesus’ saving work, rather than anything that we do in this life.
So, it demands that we surrender our lives totally to God and “…lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).
QUOTE: Surrender your life totally to God.
CHALLENGE: How do you run the heavenly race?
PRAYER: Oh Lord, help me not to miss the prize of God’s high calling.
1. Admit that you are a sinner. "For all [humans] have sinned, and comes short of the glory of God....[and] the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 3:23)
2. Repent now. "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out ...[for] if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness " (Acts 3:19, 1 John 1:9)
3. Believe that God loves you and Jesus died for you. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet Sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8)
4. Invite Jesus into your life through prayer of faith. Jesus says, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me" (Revelation 3:20)
