My Daily Pause

…he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth…

Let us know;
let us press on to know the LORD;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth – Hosea 6:3

In Philippians 3, Paul starts taking apart the differences between spiritual and fleshly things. If we are going to have The Single Mind and The Submissive Mind, then it follows that we need to concentrate on spiritual things. We want to possess The Spiritual Mind.

The word “spiritual” gets tossed around to the point of it losing its proper meaning. Vine’s Dictionary has this to say about it:

(b) things that have their origin with God, and which, therefore, are in harmony with His character, as His law is, are ‘spiritual,’ (Romans 7:14)

Paul surely would have agreed with that definition as demonstrated in Philippians 3:3-4. He says if anyone should be have confidence in what he has done in this life it should be Paul himself. He goes on to give us somewhat of a resume of his “qualifications.” (Philippians 3: 5-6) He was:

• a Hebrew of Hebrews
• circumcised
• of Israel
• of the tribe of Benjamin
• a Pharisee
• a Persecutor of the Lord’s church
• blameless under the law

He eventually realized these things were of no value in a Spiritual sense – why? – because knowing Christ has value beyond anything earthly (or of the flesh.) Knowing Christ is where we get the righteousness that is from God. (Philippians 3:9) It will be through Christ that we:

• know the power of his resurrection
• share his sufferings
• become like him in his death

Paul wants us to do anything possible to attain the resurrection from the dead! (Philippians 3:10-11)

Like all of us, even Paul knew he wasn’t there yet. (Philippians 3:12)

But…

The spiritual mind forgets what’s of the flesh and strains forward to the final goal – heeding God’s call the Christ.

This spiritual mind is the one that is mature and thinks about following Christ (Philippians 3:15)

Although we are not there yet, working toward perfection through focusing on spiritual things will insure we get to experience those “spring rains” Hosea was talking about.