"For my determined purpose is that I may know him - that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of his Person more strongly and more clearly. And that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection which it exerts over believers; and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed in spirit into His likeness even to His death, in the hope that if possible I may attain to the spiritual and moral resurrection that lifts me out from among the dead even while in the body."
- Philippians 3:10-11 Amplified Bible
If there is one thing you can say about the apostle Paul it was that he lived a purposeful life. He understood the call of God, and he pushed himself to stay riveted on fulfilling that call. This is the one thing that separates the sense-ruled Christian from that individual who has his eyes set on obtaining the prize. When people are mission-minded they find a way to live resolutely. In other words, they don't flounder around subject to all the turbulence of life. They aren't looking back over their shoulder wondering, "What if?" They have their hands on the plow and they are forging ahead with purpose. Without purpose many live restless lives. They may very well know there is something more to live for, but they are blocked from ever arriving at a life of purpose because they are so subject to the natural things around them. When life seems stable and secure they run along happy and content. But when circumstances suddenly change and get out of kilter, then they have no substance within them to know how to stay the course.
If there is anything that defines this kind of individual it is that pervading mindset of the world that locks down their initiative and prevents them from a life of purpose. Seldom have I ever met an individual who lives a roller-coaster life rising above a life of nominality. When Paul wrote to the church of Corinth, he said, "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able" (1 Cor. 3:1-2). Paul recognized the fact that though he had it in his heart to speak concerning the purpose of God into their lives, he was unable to effectively transmit that message because they were so captured in thought to a worldly mindset. He even described their lifestyle as "walking as men" (v.3).
The first time I ever read that phrase, I completely missed what Paul meant. I thought to myself, how else are we to walk? If we are men and women then surely we should walk like men and women. But Paul had something else in mind. He wasn't just talking about a natural kind of walk. He was talking about how we are to walk as Christians. The Amplified Bible throws a little bit more light on the subject. It says, "...behaving yourself after a human standard as mere (unchanged) men." In other words, they may have been changed in heart, but they never allowed themselves to be changed in mind and it prohibited them from living a life of significance.
Several years ago, the Lord began to draw my attention to the importance of transformational thinking. This is a word he gave me. He said, "You have to have a new mind for the new man." We all know what the new man is. He is that born again, recreated spirit that is now joined to the life of Christ. Paul said, "It is no longer I that liveth, but Christ that liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20). Regardless of what has taken place within, the only way this life will ever find its truest expression in us is when we allow our minds to be renewed to a whole new way of thinking.
Paul said his "determined purpose" was to progressively and more deeply know Christ! If you consider his intent in the light of what he said, "it is no longer I that liveth, but Christ that liveth in me," then really what Paul was saying is this: "Lord, I want to know you so deeply within that I will discover your life and how it is to be lived out in me and through me!" It is staggering to think that Paul's objective to his faith was to somehow reach a place where God was able to lift him out from among the dead while in the body. In other words, he wanted to be so tied into a life of resurrection power that he would step out of a life touched by death by living the life of God completely and entirety in every facet of his being!" This is what must become the objectivity of our faith...pressing toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus until our resolution of purpose defines us!
