Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Philippians 1

Our Lord loves us and places great value on our lives.  He loved us enough to give His very life as a sacrifice to pay for our sins.  The Lord does not want to just stop there, however.  The Lord wants to perfect us, so we can better live holy lives for Him.  The Lord wants to perfect us, so we can better reflect the Lord's character in our lives.  Philippians 1:6 tells us that we can be confident "that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

God's work in His children 's lives can not be stopped.  The Lord will continue to work in our lives to make us into increasingly more beautiful reflections of His beauty and grace.  The Lord does this through His Holy Word and through the conviction of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Especially in difficult times we often lean more heavily on the Lord.  Consequently, we grow in our love relationship with the Lord and in our ability to better reflect Jesus in our lives.  The Lord Jesus will continue the work of perfecting us in our lives throughout our entire lives or until the day when Jesus returns to this earth.

While we live our lives on earth our constant prayer for ourselves and for our fellow believers must be that our "love may bound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight (Philippians 1:9b."  Real love for God and others requires growth and maturity.  It requires a growing knowledge of and insight into God's Word.  This knowledge and insight must not just be a possession of facts, however, but must be diligently applied to our lives in Godly living.  This growing knowledge and insight into God's Holy Word must result in our love for God and for others.

It must also result in our lives becoming more holy before our Lord. According to Philippians 1:10-11 our prayer for ourselves and others must be that we will grow in the Lord's knowledge and insight, so that we "may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-to the glory and praise of God."   May it be our constant prayer that we and our fellow believers will become more and more like Jesus in our character, thoughts, and actions.  May we be growing in holiness our entire lives or until Jesus returns some day.  May our consuming and growing passion be that God's name will be glorified in everything we do and think.  In this way, God's will for our lives will be truly perfected in us by His Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ and living for His glory must be our consuming passion.  We must grow in our passion and desire to reflect the Lord Jesus in our lives.  Running after the things of this world such as money and pleasure is a mere "chasing after the wind" according to Ecclesiastes 4:4b. The Lord must come first in our lives.  He must be more important to us than even our careers and families.  If we do not place the Lord first in our lives and make Him the reason for our lives, we miss the whole purpose for living.

Paul said in Philippians 1:21, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."  Paul was in prison for his faith when he wrote the book of Philippians.  Paul's current circumstances did no matter to Paul, however.  All that mattered to Paul was that he was living for the Lord and for His glory.  Paul knew that living for the Lord was the secret to joy even in the difficult times in His life.  This is because Paul found his meaning and purpose for living in the Lord.  May it also be our consuming passion to grow in our desire to bring glory to the Lord and better reflect Jesus in our lives!

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