A Lenten reflection I wrote in March of 1977. It is perfectly apropos' for Orthodox Easter, 2018. It also witnesses that I had an "orthodox heart" decades before I knew what Christian Orthodoxy was.
Philippians 3:8-14 - Harnessed by the frail limitations of human thought and language, how can we express the worth of knowing Christ? We can't. We stammer and say everything else is worthless, yet HE gives all around us meaning. But that statement only hints at the priceless privilege, the overwhelming preciousness, the fantastic advantage of daily becoming more deeply acquainted with the Heart and Soul of the Universe, Jesus Christ.
It is fantastically possible to be found and known as IN Him, part of his very self. This is not a human achievement of ritualistic uprightness or supposed uprightness. No, instead it is an intimate relationship of faith and love.
We CAN have the determined purpose to progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him. We CAN be more perceptive of Him. We CAN see more clearly and strongly the wonders of His Person. There are not our achievements but as believers we cannot help being caught in the power out-flowing from His resurrection. In that over-flowing power we can actually share HIS life, HIS death, HIS resurrection and be lifted out from among the dead and become an eternally alive being.
When the limitless aspects of His person begin to dawn on our consciousness it is easy to hear Paul saying, "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead". Only then when we are straining forward to what lies ahead do our spiritual eyes come into focus and we begin to perceive the supreme and heavenly culmination of our existence in HIM. - Butch Robinson March 24th 1977
Php 3:8 - 14 More than that I also consider all things to be loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have sustained the loss of all things, and I consider them to be rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, the righteousness of the law, but the righteousness by faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; so as to know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if in some way I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained, or have already been made perfect; but I press on, if also I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not count myself to have laid hold; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Php 3:8 - 14 More than that I also consider all things to be loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have sustained the loss of all things, and I consider them to be rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, the righteousness of the law, but the righteousness by faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; so as to know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if in some way I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained, or have already been made perfect; but I press on, if also I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not count myself to have laid hold; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
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