The Tension Where Truth Lives

Philippians 3:13–14 (KJV)

There’s something honest about Paul in Philippians 3.

He doesn’t write like a man who has mastered life.
He writes like someone still moving.

“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended…”

In other words — I’m not there yet.

That line alone releases pressure.

Spiritual maturity is not arrival.
It’s direction.

And Paul makes his direction clear:

“Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before…”

Notice what he does not say.

He doesn’t say he erased the past.
He doesn’t say it didn’t matter.
He doesn’t say it didn’t hurt.

He says he refuses to live facing backward.

Forgetting, in this passage, is not denial.
It is release.

Some memories don’t need to be relived.
Some regrets don’t need to be rehearsed.
Some seasons don’t need to be revisited.

Grace does not pretend the past didn’t happen.
Grace simply refuses to let it dominate what happens next.

Paul then says he is “reaching forth.”

That language feels intentional.

It’s not drifting.
It’s not floating.
It’s not waiting for life to settle.

It’s stretching toward something greater.

Growth rarely happens by accident.
Forward movement is rarely passive.

But here’s the part that keeps this from becoming works-based:
Paul is not pressing to earn God’s approval.

He is pressing because he already has it.

“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

He is not running from shame.
He is responding to grace.

There’s a difference.

When guilt drives you, you exhaust yourself.
When grace calls you, you move with hope.

The Christian life is not about proving something to God.
It is about trusting the God who has already proven Himself to you.

So what does this mean for us?

It means we can acknowledge yesterday without being anchored to it.
It means we can learn from what was without living there.
It means the rearview mirror is helpful — but it is not your windshield.

Faith is always forward.

And the God who redeemed your past is already present in your future.

Forget what must be released.
Reach for what must be received.
Press — not from pressure — but from promise.

Because grace doesn’t just forgive your past.

It leads you forward.