treasure

"In Philippians 3:13 Paul said, "One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind." Part of our offering to the Lord is forgetting our dedication and personal sacrifice. Paul counted them as nothing. We do not stand before the Lord and calculate how much we have given Him in prayer, fasting, finances, and persecution. We forget all that because our glory is not found in anything we can give.

Our glory is in being loved by Him and in the anointing to love Him. That alone gives us value. When we become preoccupied with our sacrifice, religious pride steals in, and our motives become corrupt.

We also should forget our accomplishments. God doesn't look at spiritual résumés. The great revivals we lead, the Bible schools we started, the ministries we run—these are not our offering. No matter how many people we lead to the Lord or how many sermons we preach or how many people grow to spiritual maturity under our leadership, these mean nothing when compared to the privilege of knowing Christ. We should discount them, let them go. God will reckon them in proper balance when we get to heaven, but for us there is nothing so valuable as simply knowing God.

For this reason we should also let our failures go. These can distract us more than our accomplishments. Paul tells us to forget all these things and press in to God's heart with a spiritual violence, reaching toward the prize with all the energy we have.

That's how we want to live. We want to be a people of one thing: forgetting what is behind and pressing in to what is ahead. That's how we become men and women after God's own heart."

— After God's Own Heart, Mike Bickle

this book? crazy. too good.