Man, Paul can sure put a rosy glow lining on anything, can't he? He's in jail and yet the opening of this letter stays focused on the most important things. There's a lot to dissect in this chapter, but the overall impression it gives me is the importance of sticking with the priorities and not sweating the small stuff. Verses 9-11 kind of sums up what we need to do.
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you 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.
I could quit listening to new teaching right now and spend the rest of my life just living out this prayer. It's really quite a bit to chew on.
Increasing love.
Growing knowledge.
Deepening insight.
Discerning God's best.
Staying pure.
Bearing fruit.
Giving glory to God.
That's a tall order. So for today, just re-read the chapter if you need more to think about. For me, I'm going to start with increasing love.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Philippians 1
Labels: Paul's letters
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
Love is a good place to start today or any day. Our faith won't work without it and love never fails! Just those two promises should keep us diretced to improving our love walk.
I struggle so much with the concepts in this chapter. It hurts. It’s not what I signed up for. v. 29 “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.” It really hits home that we have to lose this life to gain it. It “has been granted to you” makes it sound like a privilege.
Post a Comment