10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Today as a staff we talked about the end goal of our lives. It seems that there are a couple traps we can fall into as Christians.
1. We think think only about the present.
2. We think only about the future.
By doing only the first, we engage fully in the social elements of the gospel without considering the needs of the future.
By doing only the second, we dream about the future and miss the chance to express love in the present to those who may need it most.
I know this is an oversimplification and there is a raging debate in Christianity about how to embrace the full gospel, live the gospel out and then continue to share it and I think this what Paul is driving at..he talks about his identity before Jesus, his identity after he met Christ and then he moves on to these verses as a reminder on how to know Christ and how to make him known as we live presently in Christ and hope eternally in Christ.
Wherever you are on the map of following Christ...embrace him fully and not partially. It's so easy to be engaged only in the morals of Christ without having to wrap ourselves up fully in the difficult things he called us to do and be as his followers.
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