Philippians 3:12
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

This verse has a special place in my heart, as Christians we are far from perfect and yet we strive to be like our Savior Jesus who was. This is what Paul is acknowledging with this verse, he knows that he has a ways to go and also that we acheive perfection when we are finally with Christ. What we should do is strive to make our faith our own and not that of our parents, friends, or pastors. 

We get saved and accept Jesus as our Savior, that is the first step, we have new life in Him. This is what saves us from our sin allowing us to spend eternity with Jesus. The second is called sanctification, this is what happens as Christians when we become more like Christ. Sanctification is a word that is used for setting apart. What it means is that as we grow in our faith we become more like Jesus, we become more holy. But as the Apostle Paul was sharing with the Philippian church here is that it is a work in progress, we need to press in, continually seeking Jesus as it is He who makes us more like Him. How does this look practically. One thing to think about is our responses that we give, one day we might get angry with someone because they slighted us, and we read in our Bible about anger. Proverbs 15:1 that a "soft answer turns away wrath". We see here that God doesn't like it when we get angry and lose our tempers. We also see in Galatians 5:22-25 that the one of the fruits of the Spirit is gentleness and you cannot be gentle when your angry. Now how to we change. One of the ways that that the closer we draw to Christ the easier it will be to let those things that we had to deal with in the past go. It is that growth. We want to please Jesus and bring honor to Him so we make an effort to not do those things that He doesn't want us to do.

 

Look at the last half our this verse. "Christ Jesus has made me His own". Here's the thing we just talked about how we are to become more like Christ, we need to remember that we cannot do this on our own, and once we accept Jesus as our Savior we have a helper in the Holy Spirit

John 16:7
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.