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"M
om, would you like me to heat up your coffee?" "Yes, Honey I would" she replied. So, I quickly picked up her cup and headed to the kitchen. Mom has just moved to Tennessee from California so every time there is an opportunity to wait on her is special to me!
My Sister, Shirley, also has moved to Tennessee as she and I partner in making sure Mom has what she needs. Being a "multi-tasker" I busied myself in the kitchen while her coffee warmed.
It's one thing to "multi-task" but it's another to remember everything you are doing! While I was busy "doing", I forgot about Mom's coffee. Meanwhile, Shirley, knowing Mom liked a special tea, had gotten out a teabag and set it by Mom while she heated up a cup of hot water.
Finally, remembering what I was doing, I took Mom her coffee and set it down in front of her. Mom, thinking it was her hot water for her tea, promptly put her teabag in it. Shirley, now having Mom's hot water ready and in a cup, brings it to her! Looking for the teabag, Shirley finds it in another cup...a cup of coffee! The entire scene was like an old Lucille Ball movie and I was Lucy!
I don't think the apostle Paul meant for us to do as I did when he said, "Forgetting which things are behind"! Phil 3:13 and 14 is speaking about our new life in Christ as he tells us, "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
I certainly had forgotten the project I was behind on. Yet both Shirley and I had a goal, and we were pressing towards our "high calling" to take care of Mom!
Paul is speaking of something far greater than Mom's coffee-tea! Paul had just shared his titles and position and what his world would feel was important. Verse 7, "But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ". So even the wonderful and great things we feel we have accomplished in life can't even be compared to the revelation we have in Him! So, forget valuing our importance on what we can do or what we know! It's who we are in Him and what He has done that's important!
I remember when I received my "Honorary Doctorate" for pioneering widows ministry in India for eleven years. There were some that had a hard time with me having the title of "Dr. CarolMarie" since I had not followed the route they did in college. Later the Lord affirmed me through a friend who is the Founder of a credited Bible Institute that is in over 100 countries. He said, "Anyone can get a degree from going to school but to get an 'honorary doctorate' they are recognizing your character as well." Even with that Paul is saying we lay it all down in comparison to what we have in Christ!
Then he addresses the pain of the past and that it's not worth dwelling on, "for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ." I love how the Amplified translation shares the purpose of forgetting the good and the bad of the past. Verse 10, "[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 ..."
We are in the Hebrew month of Cheshvan whose tribe is Manasseh (which means, "One who makes to forget, leap up and away.") It's a month in which we do not determine our worth by what we can do, or our depreciation by the pain we have experienced. Joseph named his son Manasseh when he determined to move forward in his high calling in God. He chose to not let his strengths or pain describe him. Paul's determined purpose, as should be ours, was to know Christ! That it was through the sufferings in life that transforms our character into His image as we keep our eyes on Him!
It starts with being able to laugh at ourselves in our "I love Lucy" situations when we put our teabags in our coffee!
~Dr. CarolMarie
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"I invite you to visit my personal Facebook page (CarolMarie Smith), where I post videos and insights open to the public that will help you continue to grow! We also film and post the Tuesday meetings on Facebook that compliment what I share in our weekly Cup of Empowerment."
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