I have a challenge for everyone.  Try to pick a spot to walk to or ride a bike to a straight-line spot.  Then, while moving toward it, look to the left or right, or try looking backward as you move forward.  What do you think will happen?

There’s a rule about turning when riding a motorcycle.  Look to where you want to turn.  If you try to look straight, you will struggle to make the turn because your body wants to go where your head points.

This is also true spiritually. I do not make spiritual progress by looking backward or by being distracted by the right or left. I need to look to Jesus, not myself, and definitely not compare myself with others.

Although I am spiritually complete in Christ, soul development and a walk of faith-based obedience are the heritage of a true disciple of Jesus.  The Apostle Paul understood this, and this is why he wrote the following to the Philippians:

Philippians 3:12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

He knew that Christ had saved him for a purpose, that he had a calling on his life, and that he had not yet completed all that he was created to complete.  This calling to answer the purpose of God for one’s life is what Paul referred to as the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  It was becoming one with Christ.

Jesus came to this earth with a purpose.  He understood the calling of His life and persevered through trials and temptations to complete His mission.  The Father decreed the mission and declared His identity and purpose.  Jesus accepted it and faithfully fulfilled all that was His to fulfill.

We should be thankful that Jesus did not just declare His Father’s love for Him and then decide that meant He need not do anything at all that the Father desired.  What if He had reasoned that He was so loved that it didn’t matter what He did?  Would any of us be saved today?  What if He had declared I do not need to deal with the inconvenience and anguish of the cross to have my Father’s love?  It was not that He needed to perform to earn the Father’s love. It was that the Father’s love led Him to the cross for the sake of others.  The obedience of Jesus was to satisfy the Father’s desires for Him and to benefit all of us through His obedience.  This is also true for all of us.  We are greatly loved with the same love Jesus had and still has from the Father.  Our obedience in faith is not to earn anything or to somehow increase a love already unrestrained towards us.

Our obedience is to satisfy the Father’s desire for us and to benefit others by being one with Jesus.  It is our upward call of God in Christ Jesus!  It is truly what it means to press forward.  If Christ is being formed in me and I am being transformed into His image, this desire will find a home in my heart and soul, and I will find myself wanting to know the Father’s desires for my life.  It will bring me great joy to see the Father’s design and desires being carried out on this earth through my life.  There is a prize that comes from that upward call of God in Christ.  It is by being one with Jesus that His attitude and life find expression in and through me.  That is a great prize in and of itself.  Pressing forward is living well.