Drill PHI 3:12-18 The first military discipline a new recruit learns is how to march. In Philippians 3:16 Paul uses another military term that the Philippian believers would certainly have understood. Stoicheo was used by the Roman army for the precision marching that took a body of soldiers from place to place. The new recruit had to learn to follow the voice of the one calling cadence and to move in unison with other soldiers. The recruit did not, of course, know where he was going. But he listened to the call of someone who did know where the troops needed to be and how to get them there in the fastest and most efficient way. The new Christian, like the new soldier, has no idea where he is going in life or how to get there. But God provides pastor-teachers who do understand the goals and objectives God has for every one of His children. The believer’s first task is to listen to instruction and learn to march. Objective Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. PHI 3:12-14 When Paul became a believer in Jesus Christ, human success lost its appeal. He counted all things loss because he found Jesus Christ (PHI 3:8-9). But Paul did not want to sit at the foot of the cross the rest of his days; he wanted to move from the point of his salvation to what he calls in verses 13 and 14 “the goal.” Christianity is goal oriented. Paul says he presses on “toward the goal for the prize of the upward call,” the purpose of God for his life. Paul knew there was a reason for his existence, that he had a destiny—a call from God—and he wanted to lay hold of it. He knew that if he attained the goal, he would receive the prize. He knew that God has laid up eternal reward for every Christian who fulfills the plan of God for his life. Central to God’s plan is a growth process designed to take every believer from the point of spiritual birth to maturity and beyond. The Word describes five stages of spiritual growth. In ROM 1:17, the Apostle Paul says that believers go “from faith to faith.” There are five Hebrew words for faith found in the Old Testament and they parallel five stages of growth.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 11:42:04 +0000