| Phil. 3:9-12 |
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Lesson # Phil. 3:9-12 Study Material - Phil. 3:9-12 You must be in fellowship prior to your Bible study, so that the spiritual information you receive can become a source, of blessing to your soul and produce spiritual growth. Phil. 3:9-12 9 And [kai] be found [heurisko] in [en] him [autos], not [me] having [echo] mine own [emos] righteousness [dikaiosune], which [ho] is of [ek] the law [nomos], but [alla] that which [ho] is through [dia] the faith [pistis] of Christ [Christos], the righteousness [dikaiosune] which [ho] is of [ek] God [theos] by [epi] faith [pistis]: 10 That I may know [ginosko] him [autos], and [kai] the power [dunamis] of his [autos] resurrection [anastasis], and [kai] the fellowship [koinonia] of his [autos] sufferings [pathema], being made conformable [summorphoo] unto his [autos] death [thanatos]; 11 If by any means [ei pos] I might attain [katantao] unto [eis] the resurrection [exanastasis] of the dead [nekros]. 12 Not [ou] as though [hoti] I had already [ede] attained [lambano], either [e] were already [ede] perfect [teleioo]: but [de] I follow after [dioko], if [ei kai] that I may apprehend [katalambano] that for [epi] which [hos] also [kai] I am apprehended [katalambano] of [hupo] Christ [Christos] Jesus [Iesous]. KJV-Interlinear 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. NASB Perfection is the ultimate goal of the believer. Actually there are three stages of perfection, if you want to view your spiritual life in that term. The first stage is for the unbeliever and that stage is salvation, or believing in Jesus Christ. Without this stage, there is of course a resurrection for the unbeliever, but the unbeliever is raised from the dead, not to live again but to be judged and committed to a second death and a permanent death. Do unbelievers have another chance at being saved and living in heaven? No. As we have seen time and time again. A negative person demonstrates his rigid negative attitude even in the face of Gods miracles, even standing in front of God they will reject God. The Bible demonstrates this over and over, and Satan is the best example of a negative person. He has been around since the creation of the angels, and has seen all of history, has been in the court of heaven, and still rejects God. Even in the Tribulation when he is finally cast into prison for 1000 years, and then released, he will still reject God. Negative people are negative and will never change. Even though God gives them every chance to simply believe in Christ. And many chances are given to unbelievers throughout their lives. But their arrogance is so rigid they refuse to even believe. Having that simple thought in ones head is soooo simple too. Anyway, the second stage to perfection is spiritual growth to maturity. This requires a positive attitude for the believer toward Bible study. Will you study or won't you study? Just as there is a tremendous advantage in believing in Christ, which the unbeliever loses out on and the believer seizes when he believes. So too, there is a tremendous advantage for the mature believer when he advances to spiritual maturity, which the negative believer loses out on because he does not see the importance of studying Bible doctrine. The third stage is resurrection. This will come for us at the rapture. Our resurrection will be our raising from the dead either in our physical death for those who are not alive when that event occurs, or from our bodies of flesh, and we will be raised to a new life never to see death ever again. Not only that we will have unique bodies of perfection, and this is the ultimate in perfection's. Paul has referred to all three. Not seeing any advantage in the flesh or worldly standards, because all the advantage is in the spiritual life which we obtain through our daily Bible study. We take on a new righteousness, Gods righteousness. Not the righteousness which mankind defines for himself, a righteousness which is dust and dung. Actually Isaiah describes it as menstrual rags, heavily used rags never cleaned and used over and over again throughout ones life. Now a woman would have to be thoroughly disgusting to reuse her menstrual articles over and over without changing or cleaning up. Yet this is the description of mans righteousness, which is worthless, but many a person holds to their self importance, in rejecting God. Note too, that we have been talking about the evil status of virtually everything in life. Remember that this is with respect as to how any given thing relates to God. If you reject God, live out of fellowship, etc., then everything you do in life is simply the production of your sin nature and therefore wicked. On the other hand, if you are positive toward God, advancing toward spiritual maturity, in fellowship, etc., then virtually everything you do (even when you are asleep), is deemed divine production. So what you do is not the issue, the issue is from what source does it come - the spiritual life or the sin nature life. Life does not have to be dull and no fun. Actually, while you are in fellowship and advancing in your spiritual life, you can have the most fun in your entire life. You can hit 'em hard in football, sing while you are in the shower, cook, sew, drive a car, work at you job, play, whatever. Your mind is not cluttered with the distractions of guilt, or deception, or manipulation, or plotting, or inordinate competition and so forth. Our righteousness, Gods righteousness, did not originate from ourselves, but came from God. We did not lay hold of Christ, rather He laid hold of us. Christ first loved us. In this way we press on toward our goal, because it is the most worthy goal in our lives. Our desire, as we learn Bible doctrine, is to learn more and to keep what we have. Looking on to the next stages of perfection - maturity and, ultimately resurrection. In all of this we did not contribute even one once or gram of effort. God does all the work. He laid out a plan to save us, and He saved us. He laid out a set of books to advance us, and He advances us in our spiritual growth. He has prepared a resurrection for us and He will execute it in due time. We did nothing in all of this to accomplish it for ourselves. We receive no credit for wanting to learn and grow. But God blesses us as a result of our advancing and complying with His plan.
End Of Lesson Study to show thyself approved (mature) unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing (studying/discerning), the Word of truth. 
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