Get Back on That Horse and Ride! Today's Three-minute Bible Study Print, Study and Apply Title: Get Back on That Horse and Ride! ----------------------- Date: 07/29/1999 Keywords: "past" "perfect" Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual temptation. Passage: Philippians 3:12-14* 12. Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. 13. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14. I press on toward the goal for the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Questions 1. Most would agree that the apostle Paul was a mature Christian. Did he view himself as having "arrived" at spiritual maturity?   2. What did Paul do with the things in his past?   3. What was the goal toward which he constantly aimed his life?   Practical help If the apostle Paul had to admit that he had far to go in achieving the Christian maturity he desired, should any of us be surprised if we demonstrate, from time to time, a remarkable lack of maturity? Without for a minute excusing any Christian who acts sinfully or foolishly, we must recognize that we are no more super-saints than Paul was. Failures will occur. We will fall occasionally. But what do we do when we fall? Paul’s tactic for dealing with failure was to brush himself off, forget the past, and march onward and upward toward maturity. When I was a young boy learning to ride horses, the best advice I ever received was, "When (not if) you are thrown, get up, brush yourself off, get back on that horse and ride." So for the Christian. If you have fallen a dozen times, or a hundred times — or more! — into pornography, by God’s grace, you can rise again. Forget past failures, except as they help you learn to not fail — and press on toward maturity, trusting and obeying Christ! eXXit homepage Index of three-minute studies Copyright 1999 by eXXit *"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission."