Résumé Shredder

Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2026

If anyone had grounds for religious bragging, Paul did: circumcised on the eighth day, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, and “as for righteousness based on the law, faultless” (Philippians 3:5-6). This is the spiritual LinkedIn profile to end all profiles. And then he does the unthinkable. He shreds it. “I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ” (3:8). The Greek word for “garbage” is a bit more graphic than most translations let on, and so is his point.

John Newton knew something about résumés that needed shredding. A former captain in the slave trade, he became an Anglican pastor and wrote “Amazing Grace.” He composed his own epitaph, later carved at St Mary Woolnoth in London, describing himself as once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slavers in Africa, who was preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy, all by the rich mercy of Jesus. Notice he left the worst lines in. Why? Because grace is only astonishing when it is honest. That’s why in our good intentions to be “inclusive” of all people, we cannot deny that we’re all currently floating in the same sea of sin. Without the Law we can’t understand sin. Without sin, we can’t understand grace.

Whether your résumé is dazzling or dreadful, the Gospel offers the same trade: not “a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ” (3:9). You can’t impress your way into God’s love, and you can’t disqualify yourself from it either. It’s that second part that people so often forget. So Paul keeps running, “forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead” (3:13), not to earn belonging but because Christ Jesus has already taken hold of him (3:12). The finish line is a Person, and He is already holding your hand.

Devotional Prompts:

What items on your own “résumé,” impressive or shameful, are you tempted to lean on for a sense of worth?
What might it look like to tell your story as honestly as Newton did, without being crushed by it?
What is “behind” you that you need to release so you can lean toward what God has ahead?

Prayer: Gracious Father, we lay our achievements and our failures alike at the feet of Jesus. Free us from the exhausting work of proving ourselves, and let us rest in a righteousness that is a gift. Keep us pressing on, held firmly by the One who has already taken hold of us. Amen.