Super Sunday

It's Sunday again, which means that I spent my morning worshiping with about 2-300 of the most beloved people in the universe. I enjoy every minute that I am able to spend with my fellow believers, if not just to be speaking about Jesus together (I'm not a very out-going type of person...).
Today, our Pastor was speaking on the Holy Spirit, and here is where I followed a rabbit trail, and where this blog post is happening. He brought up Philippians 3, where Paul says that he has "not yet attained" what he's striving for. That doesn't have anything to do with the Holy Spirit (nor did my Pastor intend it to, it was a sub-point).
So, thanks to Tullian Tchividjian, I desired to see if there wasn't a Gospel motivation to Paul's striving to reach the prize. Well, I didn't have to search far, because in verses 12-14 speak of the striving, and the section before it, speaks on the Gospel. Verse 9 says, "and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith".
So, we see that Paul's motivation for his striving toward the goal of "the upward call of Christ Jesus" is motivated not by his righteousness, but by Christ's righteousness.
But, if you noticed the "and" at the beginning, that points out something interesting too.
The "and" is a continuing from the last verse, where Paul says that he will count all of his religious accomplishments as "rubbish" for the sake of "gaining Christ".
I found it amazing that this Gospel verse seems to tie together both his past strivings and his present strivings. Paul once strove for his own righteousness, but the Gospel knocked him off of his high horse (literally, Acts 9), and now he is striving not to attain his own righteousness, but because he has already obtained the righteousness of Christ through faith.

So, let us strive "because of" and not "so that" we would obtain righteousness.

Have a great Lord's Day everyone...