PHILIPPIANS 3:13

“Brothers and sisters, I do not regard myself as having taken hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,”

As I was playing cars with my little 11 month old grandson, I watched as he stretched to reach this one little car that is his favorite. We have this building complete with ramps and tunnels and his little car had gotten stuck in the tunnel. He reached and stretched. While I was tempted to jump in and rescue the car for him, instead, I watched. He kept reaching and straining to grab that car until finally…he did. Boy, his face just lit up to say, “Look what I got!” He was so proud.

The word Paul uses in today’s verse for “reaching forward” is only used right here in the New Testament. It means “to stretch out, to extend, to reach forth, to strain after, to stretch forward.” That’s exactly what my grandson did and that is what Paul says he was doing. He was straining to reach his heavenly reward. Aren’t we all doing the same?

APPLICATION

Just like my grandson who had to do the stretching and reaching himself to grasp that car, Paul says we have to do this ourselves. The word is a Present Participle in the Middle Voice. This word is tied to the action verb which is found in the next verse (we’ll see that tomorrow). But you need to know that the Middle Voice is an action you must do yourself. Paul had to reach and strain himself. So do we.

We will also see tomorrow what Paul was straining for exactly. As followers of Christ who seek to obey Him, our goal should be the same. Instead, we get distracted and start reaching for all the wrong things. We grab at careers and houses and material possessions. We strain to get friends or business partners or that special date for Friday night.

What are you straining to reach? Is it Christ? Is it His Word? Or are you stuck in the perpetual stretch for stuff this world can offer? And it can offer a lot, most of which distract us from the real prize. They say you can look at your calendar and your bank account to see where your true priorities are. You might just want to take a gander at those this week. It may surprise you.

O Lord, help me stretch to reach You and only You. The other things are so easy to grab and distract.