IT’S TIME FOR A SPIRITUAL AUDIT – PHILIPPIANS 3:7-10

Posted on Mar 06

Paul drew a distinction between his past Christian life (verse 7) and his present Christian life (verse 8) in terms of his own spiritual audit. In other words, Paul continued, day in and day out, to assess his own spiritual state even after having been saved for quite some time. And if we do a spiritual audit every day, we’re much less likely to get off track with the Lord.

What is important to us? What do we value? What do we strive for, day to day? The interesting challenge here is that even when we value good things (e.g., loving our family, helping others), they don’t come close to who Jesus is. And problems can emerge when we’ve devoted too much emotional energy to even good things, because when they go bad, it can crush us. (And then we inevitably head straight for our savior for help when he was the one we should have been looking at the entire time!)

As believers, when we honestly look at even the good things we cherish in our lives, isn’t Jesus far beyond them? For that reason, let us not keep Jesus in our back pockets and simply pull him out when we need him. Instead let us place Jesus at the forefront. He’s the one who will never waver, who will never disappoint or go wrong.

The key point is drawing a distinction between knowing Jesus by observation — in the way a student learns, for example — and knowing Jesus by experience (“that I may know him and the power of his resurrection” v. 10).  Sure it’s important that we learn all we can about the Bible, about the life of Christ. But if we ignore or minimize knowing Jesus experientially — talking to him every day, continually casting our cares upon him, asking him to help us and reveal his will for our lives — we’re missing out!

Of course, knowing Jesus experientially — as raw and real a relationship as any we have on earth — can lead to “sufferings” or “becoming like him in his death,” as verse 10 points out. But the other side of that is attaining “the resurrection from the dead” as Jesus did. And what is more important than that?

Are you overdue for a spiritual audit? If so, take stock and move forward toward the Lord. Because the main goal isn’t just to know about Jesus — it’s to know Jesus.

By Dave Urbanski

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