Upward Call of God: Pressing On in Philippians 3:12-14
Short answer: The upward call of God in Philippians 3:12-14 is the heavenly prize that God, through Christ Jesus, calls believers to share. Paul describes his own pursuit not as earning favor but as responding to having been taken hold of by Christ. He presses on rather than looking back, knowing he has not arrived. The call comes from above, so the direction of the whole Christian life is upward and forward. It is God who calls, Christ who holds, and the Spirit who applies the finished work. The believer's part is to press on with perseverance, not to rest as if the goal were already reached. The prize is not a secondary reward but the fullness of resurrection life and unbroken fellowship with Christ himself.
The context of Philippians 3 and Paul's own account
Philippians 3 is not a detached meditation. Paul is writing to a church he loves, and he is writing as a man who has left something behind. Earlier in the chapter he lists his former credentials in the flesh, privileges that once defined him. He counts them as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. When he says he has not already obtained, or is not already made perfect, he is answering the idea that the Christian life is finished the moment one believes. Salvation is complete in Christ, but the outworking of it continues. Paul refuses to pretend he has arrived, and that honesty is part of the passage's power.
The word that carries the weight here is the verb Paul uses for pressing. It pictures an exertion that is deliberate and sustained, not a passive waiting. Paul is not chasing something uncertain, as if he might miss the prize. He is pursuing what he has already been seized for. Christ Jesus first took hold of him on the road to Damascus, and that sovereign act is the foundation of everything else. Paul's striving is a response to grace, never a replacement for it. That order matters for how we read the whole passage; if we reverse it, we turn the gospel into a project of human self-improvement and lose the joy that runs through the letter.
Paul also speaks of forgetting the things which are behind. This is not a call to suppress memory or to pretend the past did not happen. Paul had a past; he had persecuted the church. He is not denying that history. He is refusing to let it define his direction. Whether the past holds failure that shames us or success that we lean on, either can slow the runner. The believer learns to receive forgiveness and to release the old identity. Forgetting here means not carrying the old account into the present as if it still governed us. It is a forward posture, and it grows out of confidence in what God has already done, not denial of what we have done.
The letter to the Philippians is a letter of joy, and that joy is not naive. Paul writes it from confinement, with real uncertainty about his future. He can speak of pressing on because his hope does not rest on circumstances improving. It rests on Christ Jesus, who took hold of him and will not abandon him. When Paul says he stretches forward to the things which are before, he is not chasing a prize that might be revoked. He is running toward a person who is already holding him. That is the heart of the passage, and it shapes everything that follows in this study.
Be taken hold of by Christ: the foundation of the upward call
In Philippians 3:12, Paul says he presses on so that he may take hold of that for which he was also taken hold of by Christ Jesus. The grammar matters. The taking hold by Christ comes first. Paul's effort is a response to an act already accomplished, not a condition he must satisfy to get God's attention. This is where many readings of the passage go wrong. They turn the verse into a challenge: try harder, run faster, and maybe you will grasp the prize. But Paul's confidence is not in his grip; it is in the grip Christ has on him. The call from above reaches a person who has already been secured by grace.
Being taken hold of by Christ is the language of rescue and claim. Christ did not casually invite Paul; he stopped him, confronted him, and commissioned him. From that point Paul belonged to another master. The old life of zeal and pedigree no longer held him. If we separate the pressing from the taking hold, we end up with anxious religion. The soul begins to wonder whether it has done enough, run fast enough, and prayed long enough. But the scriptural order is rest followed by movement. We run because we are held, not in order to be held. That is the difference between the treadmill and the race set before us.
This foundation also gives the pursuit its direction. Paul does not press toward an abstract ideal but toward Christ Jesus himself. The things before him are not vague spiritual achievements but union with the one who is seated at God's right hand. Colossians 3:1 says, If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. The upward direction of the Christian life is not a flight from the world but a life oriented by the risen Lord. We seek things above because our life is hidden with Christ in God. Paul's pressing isa seeking, and the object is a person, not a prize package.
Being taken hold of also secures the outcome. Paul can speak of the prize with assurance, not because he trusts his own stamina, but because Christ completes what he begins. The one who takes hold does not let go. This is the confidence that frees us from both complacency and despair. If we have truly been taken hold of, the call will not be withdrawn. That gives the race its dignity and its hope. We are not running to earn Christ's grip; we are running because his grip is certain. Every step of perseverance is a step taken inside the security of grace.
Pressing on: what perseverance actually looks like
Perseverance in Scripture is not a dramatic sprint but a patient, repeated choice. Hebrews 12:1 says, Therefore let's also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let's run with perseverance the race that is set before us. The image is an athlete stripping excess weight. The believer is surrounded by witnesses, saints who ran before, but the race is still personal. Notice that the weight and the sin are distinguished. Not everything slowing us down is sinful; some is simply excess. The pressing Paul describes is sustained by laying aside what hinders, not merely by trying harder.
The race is set before us, which means it is assigned, not chosen. We do not get to design the course. Paul's upward call took him through shipwreck, prison, and opposition. If we imagine that the call of God guarantees ease, we will be thrown when difficulty comes. The upward direction of the Christian life does not remove the downward pull of circumstances. What it does is keep the runner oriented. The believer runs within the providence of God, trusting that the course, though hard, is not arbitrary. The one who set the race also sustains the runner. This is why perseverance is possible at all: it rests on a call that is larger than our strength.
Pressing on also means dealing honestly with failure. Paul admits he has not obtained and is not already made perfect. That is a healthy realism. If the greatest apostle refused to claim arrival, we should not expect to reach a plateau where growth stops. Progress in the Christian life is real, but it is not sinless. The believer learns to keep running after stumbles. Restoration is part of the race, not a disqualification from it. The upward call is not a performance review that ends in rejection; it is a summons from a father who corrects and restores. So pressing on involves repentance, getting up, and continuing in the direction of the call.
Practically, perseverance takes shape in ordinary means. Scripture read and obeyed, prayer sustained over time, fellowship with the body of Christ, and the discipline of remembering what God has said. Paul's language of stretching forward suggests intention, the refusal to drift. When the believer chooses to keep meeting with God when feelings are dry, that is pressing on. When she chooses to forgive again, serve again, and hope again, that is the race. Perseverance is not measured by emotional intensity but by continuing direction. The person pressing on may feel slow, but the direction is upward and forward, and Christ holds the goal.
Forgetting what is behind: release from past failure and past success
Paul's refusal to look back is a crucial part of the upward call. He had a past few could match, and he counted it as loss for Christ. If anyone had reason to lean on religious credentials, he did. Yet he says he forgets the things which are behind. This is not amnesia; it is a deliberate release of the old ledger. The great danger for the religious person is trusting in the ledger. The great danger for the shamed person is being imprisoned by it. Both traps keep the runner facing the wrong direction. Forgetting means the old account no longer determines the pace or the path.
For those carrying shame, the passage is tender. The word of the gospel is that Christ took hold of Paul while he was still an enemy. The past is not erased from history, but it is absorbed into grace. Forgiveness means the record is settled, not that the memory vanishes. The believer may still remember, and memory may still sting, but the memory no longer condemns. Paul does not live under the shadow of the persecution he once led. He lives from the call that found him. Pressing on requires that we stop rehearsing the old identity as if it were still true of us. We are not what we were.
For those carrying success, the warning is subtler. Past accomplishments can become a resting place. A burst of spiritual growth, a season of fruitful ministry, a reputation built over years, can all quietly become the thing we trust. When that happens, we stop pressing forward because we feel we have enough. But the upward call is toward Christ, and no amount of past fruit exhausts him. Paul treats his achievements as loss precisely so that he can gain Christ. This is not ingratitude; it is proportion. Compared with knowing Christ, the old gains are not merely inferior but discarded. The runner keeps stretching forward because the goal is not behind.
There is also a communal dimension to this forgetting. Congregations can live off past revival or past reputation. Families can live off past faithfulness. But the call of God comes to us now, in this generation, in this season. 2 Corinthians 4:16 says, Therefore we don't faint, but though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day. Day by day renewal means the call is fresh each morning. The past, whether glorious or grievous, is not the place to camp. We receive it with thanks or with repentance, and we turn our faces forward to the one calling us upward.
The upward call and the hidden life in Christ
To speak of the upward call is to speak of a life hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:1-4 opens with a conditional, If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above. The resurrection of Christ is not only an event we look back to; it is a reality we share. Because we have been raised with him, our seeking is not a climb from death to life. It is a life already made new, now directed upward. The call is upward because our head is above. We tend to think of the Christian life as reaching toward a distant God, but the gospel says we have been reconciled and seated with him in the heavenly realms. The direction of the call matches the position we have been given.
This hidden life explains the tension Paul lives in. He has not arrived, and yet he is already united to Christ. Both are true. Theologians sometimes speak of the already and the not yet, and Philippians 3 is a clear example. We have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. The upward call holds these together. It prevents complacency, because the not yet keeps us pressing on. It also prevents despair, because the already assures us that Christ holds us. A believer who grasps only the not yet will be anxious; a believer who grasps only the already may become careless. The passage calls us to live in the fullness of both.
The hiddenness of this life also means that much of the race is unseen. Paul's pressing on did not always look impressive; he spent years in prison, in travel, in small gatherings. The upward call often works out in ordinary faithfulness that no one applauds. A parent praying at night, a worker refusing dishonesty, a believer quietly serving the church, these are the movements of the race. The world cannot see the life hidden with Christ, but God sees it. The call is not primarily to public achievement but to hidden devotion. That is why the reward is described as a prize from above, where Christ is; the applause of earth is not the standard.
The hidden life also shapes our desires. Seeking things above is not escapism; it reorders love. When our life is hidden with Christ in God, the things we once found essential lose their absolute claim. We still work, marry, raise children, and engage the world, but we do so as those whose citizenship is elsewhere. The upward call relativizes both our fears and our ambitions. It frees us from needing to be vindicated now. If Christ is our life, then when he is revealed, we will be revealed with him in glory. The pressure to build our own glory is removed, and the race becomes a pursuit of the one who is already glorious.
How the upward call holds in suffering and mortality
The upward call is most tested when life is hard. Paul writes from prison with the possibility of execution before him. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 acknowledges that the outward man decays. The body weakens; circumstances press in. Yet the inward man is renewed day by day. The call does not exempt the believer from decline. It gives a countermovement within it. The visible world is temporary; the unseen is eternal. Paul's pressing on is not denial of aging, sickness, or loss. It is the confidence that these do not have the final word. The runner may tire, but the upward pull of the call keeps the heart alive even as flesh fades.
Suffering also refines what we mean by the prize. If we think the prize is earthly comfort, then suffering seems like failure. But the prize is Christ himself, and no amount of earthly loss can diminish him. In fact, loss often strips away false treasures and makes the prize dearer. Many believers testify that their deepest knowledge of God came in their hardest seasons, not because pain is good in itself, but because it weaned them from lesser hopes. The upward call does not promise a pain-free path. It promises that the path leads to resurrection life, and that the one calling is faithful. The race continues through the valley, not around it.
Romans 8:28-30 anchors this in God's purpose. We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. The call is not a vague invitation; it is according to purpose. The same passage links calling, justification, and glorification in an unbroken chain. Those whom God calls, he also glorifies. The upward call is therefore guaranteed in its outcome. Suffering cannot sever it, because the one who calls is the one who will bring it to completion. This does not explain every specific trial, and we should be honest that some suffering remains mysterious to us. But it does assure us the call will not be abandoned in the middle of the course.
Mortality itself is reframed by the upward call. 1 Peter 1:3-5 speaks of being born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and of an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and reserved in heaven. The upward direction of the call points beyond the grave. Death is still an enemy, and we do not pretend otherwise. But it is a defeated enemy, and for the believer it becomes a doorway. Paul can press on toward the prize because the prize is not in this world's currency. The call from above outlasts every earthly measure, and that makes the race worth running to the very end.
What the upward call means for daily obedience
The upward call is not reserved for mystical moments. It reshapes ordinary obedience. If we have been taken hold of by Christ, then every area of life becomes a place to press on. Work becomes service rendered to the Lord. Relationships become opportunities to love as Christ loved. Money becomes a tool for the kingdom rather than a master. The call from above touches the details because the one calling is Lord of the details. Paul's language of pressing on is athletic, but the arena is daily life. The believer who wants to know what the upward call looks like can begin by asking what faithfulness requires in the next hour, not in some dramatic future.
Daily obedience also involves a rhythm of looking up and looking around. Looking up keeps us oriented to Christ and to the things above. Looking around keeps us engaged with the people and tasks God has placed before us. The two are not in conflict. A heavenly-minded believer is often the most useful earthly servant, because she is not ultimately dependent on earthly reward. Conversely, a believer who ignores the upward call can become absorbed in earthly things and lose perspective. The race is run on the ground, with eyes on the goal. Paul's own ministry shows this combination of transcendent hope and tireless earthly service.
Obedience is also communal. The upward call is personal, but it is not private. We run with others. Hebrews 12 speaks of a cloud of witnesses, and Paul's letters are addressed to churches, not to isolated individuals. The believer needs the body to keep pressing on. Encouragement, correction, and shared worship are means by which the call is heard afresh. When one member stumbles, others help him up; when one grows weary, others carry the pace. This is part of the genius of the Christian life. The call is to each of us, but it is fulfilled among us. To neglect the assembly is to mute one of the main channels through which the upward call is sounded.
Finally, daily obedience rests on grace. Paul does not end the passage with a command to try harder. He ends with the prize of God's upward calling in Christ Jesus. The emphasis falls on God's action. That means our obedience is not the ground of our acceptance but the fruit of it. We press on because we are already accepted in the beloved. We run because we are already held. This is what keeps the upward call from becoming a burden of performance. The believer works out salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God who works in him both to will and to do for his good pleasure. The race is real, but so is the grace that carries the runner.
Biblical fidelity check
Philippians 3:12-14 establishes several things clearly. Paul had not reached sinless perfection, and he said so. He directed his effort forward, not backward. He grounded his pursuit in being taken hold of by Christ. He described the goal as the prize of God's upward calling in Christ Jesus. The passage does not teach that believers can lose their salvation, nor does it teach that salvation is earned by effort. It does not command a particular method of spiritual discipline. It does not promise that pressing on will produce earthly prosperity or visible success. It presents the Christian life as a sustained, grace-rooted pursuit of Christ, with resurrection and final fellowship as the goal. Anything beyond these lines is addition, not exposition.
A common misreading turns the passage into moralism. On this reading, Paul becomes an example of sheer human determination, and the upward call becomes a challenge to try harder until you measure up. But that reverses the order Paul is careful to establish. The taking hold by Christ precedes the pressing on. The upward call is not a summons to earn God's favor; it is a summons from the one who already holds us. Another misreading treats the passage as if the Christian life has no direction at all, as if any sincere path would do. Paul is explicit about direction: forgetting what is behind, stretching forward, pressing toward the mark. The call has a shape. Faithful Christians may differ on how the prize and rewards relate, and we should say so honestly, but they should not differ on grace as the foundation or on Christ as the goal.
Other passages that speak to Philippians 3:12-14
The theme of the upward call runs through Scripture beyond this single passage. Hebrews 12:1-2 sets the race before us and points to Jesus as the author and finisher of faith. Colossians 3:1-4 calls believers to seek the things above because their life is hidden with Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 contrasts outward decay with inward renewal and fixes attention on the unseen and eternal. Romans 8:28-30 grounds the call in God's unbreakable purpose from foreknowledge to glorification. First Peter 1:3-5 ties the living hope to the resurrection and to an imperishable inheritance kept in heaven. Together these passages show that the upward call of Philippians 3 is not an isolated metaphor but a central pattern of the Christian life. For further study, see Jesus and the Gospels Season 1 Episode 4 Bible Study Guide: Peter, Calling, and Following Jesus, Simon Peter in the Bible: Calling, Failure, and Restoration, What Does 1 Corinthians 1:10 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application, and What Does 1 Corinthians 1:9 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application.
Frequently asked questions
What is the upward call of God in Philippians 3:14?
The upward call is God's summons to the fullness of life with Christ, culminating in resurrection and unbroken fellowship with him. Paul calls it the prize of God's upward calling in Christ Jesus. It is upward because it comes from above and draws the believer toward Christ, who is seated at God's right hand. It is not a call to earthly status or personal achievement. It is the goal of the whole Christian race, and it is secured by Christ himself, not by the runner's performance.
Does pressing on mean I earn my salvation?
No. Paul grounds his pressing in the fact that Christ Jesus first took hold of him. Effort flows from grace; it does not produce it. Good works are the fruit of salvation, never its root. If we made our striving the basis of acceptance, we would be trusting ourselves rather than Christ. Instead, we run because we are already held, forgiven, and adopted. Assurance rests on Christ's finished work, while perseverance is the Spirit-enabled response of a grateful heart.
How do I forget what is behind without denying my past?
Forgetting in Philippians 3 is not erasing memory but releasing the old account so it no longer controls your direction. You name the past honestly, receive forgiveness for sin, and refuse to let former failure define you or former success secure you. Practically, that may mean confession, counsel, and choosing to dwell on God's promises rather than on the old record. The goal is a forward posture rooted in grace, not a denial of history.
