The Plumbline

I keep running hard toward the finish line to get the prize that is mine because God has called me through Christ Jesus to life up there in heaven. ( Philippians 3:14 ERV ) I read this passage again this morning in the Easy to Read version and I saw a couple of things that really hadn't dawned on me before. While not every translation puts the original intent perfectly, there is some validity to just looking at the passage from a different perspective once in a while as it can bring things to light you may not have seen in quite that perspective before! Here's what I saw: - The prize is already ours! We are running a race that is already pre-determined to have us as winners - to gain the prize, we just keep running. I think there are a whole lot of us that have the idea we run to attain - but we really run because it is already ours. - We are called, so we should live up to our calling! Through Christ Jesus, we are called. In him, we have a new purpose and destiny. We are dest...

None of us is exactly what God wants us to be, are we?  We all struggle with just a little bit of the same things - we may just call them different names. Regardless of what we call the things which keep us from being entirely what God wants us to be, we haven't reached our goal.  What is that "goal"?  Many times we go through life without ever asking that question - where am I headed, why is it important for me to get there, and what will it take for me to realize the goal?  For a long time, I saved money, but had no idea how to invest it, or how much I'd actually need to save in order to reach some goals, such as paying off the house mortgage or being able to retire from a full-time job.  It took me a while to realize without a goal, I'd just continue to be half-hearted in my saving.  It took a plan.  God has plans for our lives and he is quite willing to share those plans with us - to know where we are headed, why it is important for us to get ther...