Please read these verses in your own Bible or on Bible Gateway: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+3%3A+1-14&version=NIV
v 1-4a: Be joyful as an antidote to grumbling and arguing. Joy in the Lord is our protection; Paul keeps saying it because we learn best with repetition.
Be alert. Don’t let your joy be stolen by “rules.” Paul is warning against anything that dilutes or adds to the pure Gospel. (As the Jew was marked as God’s through circumcision, we are marked as God’s by the Holy Spirit.)
v 4b-6: Paul ticked all the boxes as far as human ability and Jewish Law goes. But human effort is untrustworthy; we can never be perfect enough. (I’ve ticked plenty of my own boxes, too; but that led to arrogance rather than purity.)
v 7-9: Paul’s best efforts are a waste of time. Paul’s former life and status are useless. His attempts at personal righteousness are viewed as “muck.” Faith in Christ alone brings a pure, clean righteousness. No efforts of our own will ever achieve it; it is a gift.
v 10-11: Paul takes this gift of grace as step farther: he wants to completely enter the Christ-life:
To know Christ (sharing His life, and not being distracted by world, self or devil)
The power of his resurrection (victory over sin and death, new life right now!)
Participation in his sufferings (experientially knowing Christ)
Attaining the resurrection of the dead (the hope we all have in Christ)
v 12-14: Not even Paul was “there” yet. The goal is still ahead, and he pursues it with single-mindedness, with all being, energy and will, leaving the past in the past.
Lord, I’m not there yet, either. I wander from the path regularly, looking behind at the past and around at other people rather than straight ahead at You. I am not called to be Paul: no one is. But I’m called to be Yours. Show me how and lead me on a plain path. Thank You. Amen.