Day 300- Obsessed to Possess
📖Daily Reading
Phillipians 3
🎥 Video
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Phillipians 3: 12, 17-20
'I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.’
Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. '
I love how Paul is doing his best to live according to the pattern that Jesus role modeled and now he is calling others to pattern their lives after his. His heart is obsessed with this mission. He is obsessed not only for his own sake but for the sake of others as well. He is writing with tears in his eyes about this. Many of us are obsessed with possessing things in our lives. The right partner, friends, neighborhood, titles, cars, homes, decorations for our homes, food, experiences, achieving goals and on and on.
Are they healthy obsessions? Are they getting us what we want? Are they satisfying and fulfilling? Many of these things once obtained end up possessing us. There is no judgement here! I have moved 4 times in the last 10 years, always on the look out for the next and better home and location. I have owned 10 cars in the last 10 years. I have been obsessed with decorating, cooking, trying to be the best mom and even the neighborhood mom. I am that mom, the classic suburban ‘soccer’ mom with 2 kids, 2 dogs, supportive husband, going to church on sundays and ‘all the things’, but I certainly was not obsessed with being possessed by Christ.
If I had read this verse a few years ago, I am not sure I would have even understood it. I was obsessed with my possessions and wanting to please God and others with my ‘goodness’. This looks like the ‘good life’ from the view of social media, and it was very good, but I was also very exhausted, depleted, overwhelmed and not fulfilled. I LOVED my kids and my family, and I thought I loved God, but I didn’t like myself very much and I certainly was treating myself like the leftovers I felt like I deserved.
This chapter caused me to reflect back on Solomon and Ecclesiastes. He tried all the things and in the end only love mattered, everything else was like chasing the wind. Paul is chasing the feeling that he had when Christ first encountered him, not just an encounter but a possession that would fuel and cause him to be obsessed with finding that moment of perfection again. A worthy pursuit. Not only to find this for himself but to help others as well. Helping others to find the meaning of this life on earth and to each run their own race to get this ‘heavenly prize’ in this life and beyond.
I like substituting the word love in scripture ‘ But I press on to possess that perfection for which Love first possessed me’. Have you ever been possessed by perfect love? I can remember when I first opened my heart up to the possibility of God and it was certainly a sweet moment that was enough to get me walking into a church building and going to bible studies, not not the kind that Paul is talking about. Nothing that had me obsessed and wanting to run a race and being on a mission. But we don’t all get to have the lighting bolt moment and scales falling off of our eyes moment. Although, I experienced that this year. Once you do experience it, you will never be the same again, it does grow into an obsession. I understood his words today as I read them and could even relate, I guess I am making progress. I don’t feel nearly as obsessed by my possessions any more, but I still have a long way to go and that is ok. I am on the path, I have experienced perfect love offered through grace. It feels like a healthy obsession.
We humans are biologically designed and wired to desire. It is necessary, it gets us off of the couch and literally keeps us hungry and looking to satisfy our hunger. But our ultimate hunger is in our hearts, to be loved, to matter, to be seen and to be known. Humans have been trying to fill this God sized hole in their hearts with possessions since the dawn of time. Doing this does’t mean there is anything bad or wrong with you, in fact quite the evidence. This unquenchable thirst is evidence of God’s love. This is what love does - it fills in the gaps.
You don’t have to try to be loved, you just have to accept that you are. You are perfectly human and perfectly loved. Let God, let love come in and perfectly posses you heart and fill in the gaps and make you perfect. He completes you and you complete Him, his heart also has a ____ (fill in your name here) sized hole in it.
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
Have you ever been possessed by perfect love? Can you accept that you are perfectly loved just as you are? How does it make you feel when you read your name in the sentence: You complete God, His heart has a _______ sized hole in it.
📖Tomorrows Reading
Phillipians 4
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