{"id":7012,"date":"2019-07-24T06:00:20","date_gmt":"2019-07-24T13:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devonline.us\/daily-e-votional\/?p=7012"},"modified":"2019-07-24T13:40:37","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T20:40:37","slug":"pressing-upward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/pressing-upward\/","title":{"rendered":"PRESSING UPWARD!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Philippians 3:14<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #c40000;\"><strong><em>\u201cI press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I recall once being given a button with the initials\u00a0<strong><em>PBPGINFWMY.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>They stood for the phrase\u00a0<strong><em>PLEASE BE PATIENT GOD IS NOT FINISHED WITH ME YET<\/em>.<\/strong>\u00a0I think the Apostle Paul echoes this sentiment in the third chapter of Philippians.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The giants of the faith never claimed to be perfect. In fact they have been quick to admit they are constantly in need of God\u2019s redeeming grace.\u00a0<em>All we like sheep have gone astray.<\/em>\u00a0I wish it were not so, but it is a spiritual reality.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I take great encouragement in the fact that Paul confesses his personal need for continual spiritual growth and renewal. If Paul needed a closer walk with the Lord I assure you that I need it even more so.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">God never calls us to be perfect little saints; I failed at that long ago. He calls us to consistently be pressing upward toward the goal of being more Christ-like. That is the greatest achievement for us to strive to attain in this journey through life. There will come a day when we will be called to be eternally with the Lord. If you are like me you yearn to hear the Master say, &#8220;<em>Well done, good and faithful servant!&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Blessings dear hearts. Draw near to God today, trust Him completely and be a blessing!<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>&#8211; &#8211; &#8211; Pastor Cecil<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Philippians 3:14 \u201cI press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I recall once being given a button with the initials\u00a0PBPGINFWMY.\u00a0They stood for the phrase\u00a0PLEASE BE PATIENT GOD IS NOT FINISHED WITH ME YET.\u00a0I think the Apostle Paul echoes this sentiment in the third chapter of Philippians. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philippians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}