“Goal/Prize/Call”

Philippians 3: 14: “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Let’s get this clear: there is a goal, which previous verses identify as the resurrection from the dead. Having achieved the goal, we then receive a prize, which is an upward call. This shows us that the resurrection is so much more than escape from Loyola Guadelupe or Manila Memorial. Resurrection, which we begin to experience at the New Birth, begins us on a path to a fuller, deeper, higher life, a life seeped in God’s ways and God’s energy, a life focused on God and others rather than ourselves, and resulting in a transformation into God’s image. That’s the real prize, fulfilling that urge within every man to rise above, go beyond. But yes, there is most certainly, at the end of it all, a resurrection body in which we will live eternally.