This One Thing

“Not as though I had already attained”

(Phil. iii. 12, 14).

There was a time when Paul delighted to regard himself as “blameless”; but those were the days of dimmer vision, when “the glory of the Lord” had not yet shone upon him. In a dim light a faded garment may appear presentable. The shabby furniture which passes muster in the gloomy days of winter is revealed as very dingy and worn when the brighter days of spring bring sunshine into the room. Paul had lived in the grey twilight of the Pharisaic ideal, and secret faults had lain concealed, or had acquired the hue of positive graces. But now that the Light of the World had come all things were shown in their true colours, and

masquerading virtues stood revealed as presumptuous sins. “All things are made manifest by the light.”

And so now he spoke very humbly and quietly about himself. He had no large pretensions, no fatal self-conceit. “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect.” I have gathered a few flowers, but they are only a handful from an awaiting continent. Here and there in my life the fruit is forming, but nothing is yet matured. There is promise, praised be God; and there is splendid possibility, but the full performance tarries, and “the best is yet to be.”

“But I follow after,” He is not paralysed by the distance which yawns between him and the ideal. He does not sit down and weep tears of bitter impotence. He pursues the glory with all the intensity of a hound which has found the trail. And let us remember that this is the speech of an old man. We are accustomed to think of age as the season when the strenuous life is relaxed, when enthusiasm begins to fade, when the early ardours begin to cool; but here is a veteran whose “eye is not dim,” and “whose natural force is not abated,” but who preserves in his old age the magnificent forcefulness of his youth. He is as keen as ever, as uncompromising as ever, following the gleam. The Lord has laid His hand upon him, and designated him for splendid dignities, and he will devote every ounce of his strength to the accomplishment of his Master’s purpose. “I follow after, if perchance I may apprehend that for which also I have been apprehended by Jesus Christ my Lord”

“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehendedHe will not reckon perfection as an as set before it comes; such premature reckoning is the parent of loss rather than of gain. He will not repeat the folly of his pharisaic judgment, and glory in a “blameless” life. He will not dwell in a false serenity; his imperfections glared before him, and he lived in the constant sense of his need. “But one thing I do.” Mark how the great Apostle gathers all his energies together in concentrated and undivided purpose. Even though the ideal be as yet remote, even though the shining summit tower beyond him in dazzling splendour, he will not permit his strength to dribble away in vagrant endeavours or in futile regrets. He will have but one aim and one task, and every limb and every power shall pay tribute to its sovereignty. His religious ambition shall be supreme, and in the fierceness of his desire he will draw every minor yearning to the central purpose, like tributaries converging upon the main stream of a glorious river. It is this concentration which enfolds the secret of the progressive lives of all the saints of God. They live for one thing, and for one thing only. So many of us make our religion one of many interests. We take it up for a time, and then we put it down again. We are religious by spasms, we are devotional by turns. We assume there is a time for everything, and we often make the heavenly visitor tarry in the hall, or even at the door, until we have disposed of more urgent business. Now, to the Apostle Paul the urgent business in all business was just that of religion itself. Life to Paul was one vast temple, and the market was just a part of the temple, and so was his trade, and so were his friendships, and the one spiritual atmosphere must possess and pervade them all. If he were tent-making, the eyes of his soul were on the heights; in everything his one holy purpose was to become clothed in the glory of his Lord.

“Forgetting those things which are behind And what will he forget? Surely, he will remember his sins, that by the remembrance he may abide in lowliness and penitence of spirit. And surely he will remember his mistakes, lest in forgetfulness he should unhappily repeat them. What, then, will he forget? I think he will try to forget his successes. Here lay the snare of the Pharisee. The Pharisee made some little moral conquest, and then he sat down by it, and fondly hugged it and doted upon it, until he became the prisoner of his own achievement, and further progress ceased. We all know that there is such a peril as resting upon one’s oars, and that such resting is the immediate precursor of retrogression. We begin to go backward as soon as we cease to go forward. There is no holding one’s own in the spiritual life, except by continually holding more. And therefore it is a primary requisite in all progressive spirituality that we turn our backs upon our successes, and forget those things which are behind. “He that loseth his life shall find it.”

“And reaching forth unto those things that are before.” So far from dwelling indolently upon past attainments and triumphs, he strains every nerve and muscle to cover new ground, and to conquer further heights. “I press toward the mark.” He keeps the goal ever in view, never allowing himself to be enticed by the side attractions which may abound by the way. His eyes are fascinated by the coveted glory, and the fascination gives eager speed to his willing feet. And what is the goal which he contemplates? It is “the prise of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” The Apostle will not be satisfied with any ideal devised by his own imagination, or any moral compromise offered by man. How high does God call me in Christ Jesus? What does my Lord declare to be my possibility? To what glorious destiny does he lead me? That shall be my goal, and that shall be my prize, and I will listen to my Saviour’s voice as to an Alpine horn pealing forth from the uplifted splendours of the virgin

snow.