and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
Philippians 3:9 (NIV)
Walking Away From His Standing
The case comes out at night, in your own voice, in the hours when you are tired and have been treated badly. I stayed when I didn’t have to. I visited every week, and everybody in that family knows it. The dog gives up on you and settles, and you go on talking.
I have made that case in a car with nobody else in it, and I was convincing. Paul had a standing under the law that nobody could fault, and he says so himself. He leaves in the zeal that sent him after the church, and that one does not flatter him.
He wants to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ. He sets his own standing against the one God gives, and both of them are religious. He is giving up the thing he was best at, in the arena he cared about most. The standing he walks away from was the best available anywhere in his world, and he calls the whole pile garbage.
All he wants settled is where he is standing when God finds him. You can talk yourself through your case at midnight and answer a question nobody asked you, with the people it is aimed at asleep, or dead, or three states away. Paul had the one case that could have won the argument.
He wants to know Christ in the power of his resurrection and in participation in his sufferings. He asks for the hard half of it by name.
He had a standing under the law that nobody could fault, and he set it down in writing, in front of the people he was writing to.
A Prayer to Remember
Father, I’ve told my side of it to four different people now, and every word is accurate, and I can hear it getting smoother each time. I would rather be found with empty hands than get good at telling it.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
