Needs Met

I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.  To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Philippians 4:18-20  

Paul uses financial terms to express spiritual principles.  He is first eager to “credit to their account” (or affirm) their concern for his needs.  He is just as eager to let them know their gift was far more than a “full payment” for the ways he had poured himself out for them.  Not that Paul was expecting or demanding to be repaid, he simply wanted the disciples to see the working of an important spiritual principle:  When we give to meet the needs of others, God will amply supply our own needs (with interest).  In others words, we can never outgive God.  As Jesus put it, lose your life and you find it.

I Have Learned the Secret

“I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:11-13  

One of the most memorized  lines in Philippians comes as Paul plucks words from the beliefs of his day and gives them entirely new meanings.  First he says, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.”  He uses the favorite word of every Stoic—the Greek word autarxia.  To the Stoic it meant “self-sufficiency or not needing a thing because I have mastered myself.”  Paul had something else in mind.

The Power of (Faithful) Thoughts

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable¾if anything is excellent or praiseworthy¾think about such things.  Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me¾put it into practice.  And the God of peace will be with you (Philippians 4:8-9).

What kind of day did you have yesterday?  What kind of week have you had?  In what direction is your thinking tending to go?  Are you feeling positive and upbeat or negative and discouraged?  Ready to take on the world or head back to bed?  Paul’s message to you is this:  when you are “in the Lord” (back to vs. 4), you can always change your mind, and when you change your mind, everything changes.  If life is feeling like a heavy weight, if problems are threatening to overwhelm you, if the forecast offers little hope of sunshine, you can still set your mind on right and good things that will change the way you feel.

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.