Philippians 3:12 

In Philippians 3:12-16, the Apostle Paul offers us some great advice for the New Year. Over the next few days we’ll spiritually dissect it in order to come to an appreciation of it. More important than coming to an appreciation of it, however, will be our attempt to make application of it to our lives in this new year. As D. L. Moody once said, “Every Bible should be bound in shoe leather.” 

The Apostle Paul is arguably the greatest Christian who ever lived. Yet, he admits in this most transparent text that he was far from having arrived at the goal of the Christian life. Although one would think that Paul’s self-realization of such shortcoming would have discouraged the great apostle, it actually had the opposite affect. It encouraged him to press on toward the goal with renewed and even greater vigor.

Have you ever considered the fact that self-satisfaction marks the end of one’s spiritual journey. When we become satisfied where we are, we’ll lose all incentive to go any further. We’ll sit down in complacency and spend the rest of our lives patting ourselves on the back. 

I pray that God will spare you from the horrible fate of self-satisfaction in this new year. May you stay spiritually hungry; after all, no matter how far you’ve come, you’ve still got a long way to go!

To stay alive and vibrant,

for one’s hopes and dreams not to die,

does not necessitate that you be brilliant,

but merely that you stay dissatisfied.