Rejoice...Always

Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again: Rejoice!  Let your gentleness be evident to all.  The Lord is near (Philippians 4:4-5).

 It is rather amazing the way circumstances can enhance credibility.  It would be one thing to hear “rejoice always” from someone living in plenty, comfort and great health.  It is a different thing altogether to hear it from someone living in circumstances that would test and challenge us all. At the time of this writing Paul was not in good circumstances.  He had been in worse ones, but Roman imprisonment was no picnic, and if conditions on the inside weren’t so good, neither were some of those on the “outside” where the church was not always being what God wanted her to be.  And yet, Paul insisted that he and others could still rejoice.  They could still affirm life, or, more accurately, they could still affirm God.

Pressing On

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.  Only let us live up to what we have already attained (Philippians 3:13-16).

Salvation is not through a “righteousness of our own.”  But if that thought leads to sloth or laziness, we show we have missed the grace of God.   There is so much more to know.  There is so much more growing to do.  The heart that understands Christ is “compelled by the love of Christ.” The disciple who realizes that Jesus has taken hold of him, wants to take hold of everything that Jesus has planned for his life.  Such a one does not sit and wait for life to come to him; he “presses on.”  This word (dioko) was used in both hunting and foot racing.  It could describe pursuing, chasing, even overtaking and capturing. Inspired by Christ, the true disciple wants to “go for it”¾to discover all God has in the storehouses of his love.

Knowing Christ

                   I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:11).

               

 I want to know Christ.  The man who had a face-to-face encounter with the risen Lord said simply, “I want to know Christ.”  Did he not already know him?  After three days of fasting and prayer (Acts 9:9)?  After three years of personal training (Galatians 1:11-24)?  After a visit to the third heaven (visions and revelations, 2 Corinthians 12:1-6)?  Paul uses the Greek verb ginoskein which is kin to the Hebrew that describes the sexual relationship in marriage. Paul is not thinking sexually here, but he did want an ever-growing, personal, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.

Shining

Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life (Philippians 2:14-16a).

 Dark nights were also as dark as they are now.  Paul’s generation was as “crooked and depraved” as is our own.    People then had the same, ”What’s-in-it-for-me?” attitudes as they do now:  “I’m not going to do any more than I have to.”  “Why should I work?  She isn’t!”  “I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it.  I don’t really care who it hurts.  After all, what I want is the most important consideration here.”  Lust, selfishness, pride, deceit¾no century has had a corner on the commodities of the sinful nature.