Monthly Archives: December 2014

A Prescription For Life

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A PRESCRIPTION FOR LIFE

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard you hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:4-7.

Such familiar words, almost as familiar as John 3:16! We can repeat them parrot fashion and often do, but what do they mean?

Paul’s prescription for life is encapsulated in these three verses. If there was ever a “Four Easy Steps to Successful Living” statement, Paul did not need to write a book to make it. This is it!

Step one: Rejoice in the Lord always.

This is both a positive and negative prescription because no one can both rejoice and be miserable at the same time. If we allow our circumstances to dictate our moods, we will live an emotional yo-yo existence. When things go well, we are happy. When we hit a rough patch, we descend into depression. Up, down, up, down – depending on what each day brings. What a way to live, but many, even believers, do!

What’s the solution? Simple! Rejoice in the Lord! He is the most stable, unchanging and reliable person in our lives. It’s all about choices. If we choose to dwell on Him and His promises instead of riding the roller-coaster of circumstances, our emotional storms will calm down. What appears to be disaster will become just another step in our journey of faith in Him. Rejoicing in the Lord prepares us for the next step.

Did you notice how Paul said “always”? Not just sometimes or when circumstances are favourable. God works in “all things” for our good. “Rejoicing in the Lord always” tells Him that we are willing to trust Him when we cannot see the way ahead. That’s when we have to exercise our faith muscles.

Step two: Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.

What’s this about? When life goes sour on us, there is a tendency in all of us to dump our emotional pain on other people. We are moody; we lash out; we withdraw into ourselves; we erupt for very little reason; we punish those closest to us for the way we feel. Don’t we all do it? It’s our coping mechanism, but is doesn’t work. We build an emotion wall between ourselves and other people, and ourselves and God.

Paul’s answer, again, is simple. Stop focusing on your circumstances and set your mind on God. He hasn’t gone anywhere! He is near. That’s the problem. When trouble hits, we lose sight of God. Stress replaces rest as though God has suddenly lost control or gone somewhere where we can’t reach Him. Remember Job? His complaint was, “Oh that I knew where I might find Him,” but He was there all the time.

Step three: Do not be anxious about anything. It’s all very well, Paul, to tell me not to be anxious, but how can I stop being anxious when my whole world is falling apart? My child is deathly ill. My finances are in ruins. My husband has been retrenched. My house is being repossessed. The list of adversities is endless.

Again, we cannot experience two conflicting emotions as the same time. We are either anxious or at peace. The one cancels out the other. If we practise rejoicing in the Lord, our circumstance will lose their power to terrify us, and our hearts will be prepared for the next step in the crisis. What do we do with our anxiety which threatens to overwhelm us when we are staring down the barrel of a gun?

Step four: In every situation by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

What is prayer? Not bringing our grocery list to God every morning and expecting delivery the next day! Prayer is, firstly, changing our awareness. God is near but we are more aware of ourselves than of Him. Why must we change our awareness? Because everything looks different when we see things from His point of view.

Instead of rehearsing our anxieties and dwelling on our fears, Paul said, “Be real with God. He knows how you feel, but He wants you to open up to Him. Expose your heart to Him, Spill your guts!” It’s amazing what happens when we stop telling God what we think He wants to hear and start being honest enough to tell Him the truth in all its ugliness. Tell Him about your anxiety – everything! Bitterness, hatred, insecurity, fear, guilt, shame, even your mistrust of Him. Offload!

When you have got rid of all the rubbish, something awesome happens – peace that transcends understanding replaces all the garbage you have offloaded onto God. It’s an exchange. You have given to Jesus all the trash He died for, and He’s taken it from you and given you the priceless gift of peace. And guess what? What was so big before has shrunk to nothing because it’s no longer your problem.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

 

 

Always A Team

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ALWAYS A TEAM

“Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends!

“I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement, and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.” Philippians 4:1-3.

There is no place in the Christian life for lone rangers and even less room for competition. Paul did not specify what the problem was between two women in the Philippian church but, whatever it was, it was enough to merit a comment and a plea.

As believers in Jesus, they had a common goal, but they would not reach it by going it alone. Paul had urged them to join together in following him (Philippians 3:17) as he followed Christ. One of the most important facets of God’s way is unity. Oneness of heart and mind in Christ is a sure sign of God’s supernatural work because people are naturally selfish and self-centred.

God is one. He created human beings in His image to be one with Him and with one another. Satan made sure to destroy our unity when he tempted the first pair to do their own thing. If there is any disturbance of unity in Christ’s body, you can be sure that, under the surface there is self lurking and wanting its own way.

These two women, Euodia and Syntyche needed a prod to remind them that they were not in it to please themselves. They were not to work against each other, causing a rift between them and in the fellowship because people will take sides. Paul also reminded his colleague not to remain aloof but to get alongside them and help them carry their load, whatever it was.

This is a timely reminder for us that the Lord Jesus calls us not only to follow Him but, as a body, to do life together. This is our apprenticeship for the real thing when we will graduate to His eternal presence.

During their journey through the wilderness, God set up the rules for His people to live together in preparation for their life in their own land. In Egypt they had tasted what it was like to live under oppression. God wanted them to be the model for the rest of the world, a community of people who looked after each other’s interests instead of living greedy and selfish lives. It was to begin with respect for God and His ways and it spilled over into lives of generous and unselfish service.

It was to their shame that they never got it. Instead of modelling God’s way, they followed the ways of the surrounding nations until they were swept out of their land into exile for two reasons, idolatry and oppression, the very things that they were warned not to do.

Teamwork is the way of the kingdom, everyone doing what they do best in a mosaic of gifts. The trouble is that one person envies another for his gifts, and others compete for attention and accolades and make trouble when they don’t get them. Rivalry and competition split the body of Christ apart. It’s just as well the organs of our human bodies don’t compete or we would be in big trouble. When cells take over and multiply out of control because they want to be in charge, the result is death.

There are no “big and small’ in God’s kingdom – only functions to build up the body of Christ and bring into maturity in love and unity. Any friction and fraction must be dealt with quickly lest too much damage is done.

A hairline crack in any part of an aircraft is a potential for disaster. Crashes happen with terrible loss of life when small failures are overlooked or neglected. Like aircraft mechanics we must be vigilant and deal with the weak places immediately to save us from the pain of big failure later on.

Hence Paul counselled, “Deal with your issues, Euodia and Syntyche before they get too big,” and “Help them to see the real issues, my dear companion, because they can’t see the wood for the trees.” It sometimes the objectiveness of a third party to put things into perspective. It’s not interfering. It’s loving the body enough to heal the hurt places.

That’s the important thing about the body of Christ; it’s more about us than about me. Unity is about submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. We are to preserve the unity which the Holy Spirit created in the first place because unity is evidence that Jesus came from the Father (John 17:23).

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Only Two Models

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ONLY TWO MODELS

“For, as I have often told you before, and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.

“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” Philippians 3:18-21.

Paul urged his beloved Philippian believers to follow his example because he modelled his life after the pattern and example of his rabbi, Jesus. If they, in turn, followed him, they would be safe from the ravages of the world’s example which was selfish, self-indulgent and destructive. He even called them “enemies of the cross of Christ”.

I wonder whether those who call themselves “Christian”, even those who no more than tip their hats to God on a Sunday or at Christmas and Easter but live like the world, realise that they are His enemies. Whenever we stray into the dominion of the flesh, which is not the way He calls us to live, we become His enemies because self, under our old master, rules the appetites of our old nature.

The other model we have to follow is that of our rabbi, Jesus. Paul assured his readers that they had dual citizenship. They had no option but to be citizens of this world because they lived in it and were obliged to obey the laws of their country as far as they were able.

But they were also citizens of the kingdom of heaven. They were already resident in the realm of God’s rule, body, soul and spirit if they willingly submitted to His Spirit in them. The unseen presence of God called them away from fleshly indulgence to a life of obedience to Him and unselfish service to one another.

Those who live in God’s kingdom have not yet seen their king, but they await His coming with eager anticipation, His return heralds their final liberation from the old nature and will fulfill their hope of a resurrection body perfected like His body, never to suffer pain or sickness, and never to die again.

His return promises, not only the final transformation of His own but also the restoration of all things – the universe and all nature corrupted by the fall. This is as much part of our hope as our own salvation completed and perfected on that day. If we allow our imagination to take us into the future, what will it be like? Although we have no experience of living in a perfect body in a perfect world, at least we can think about ourselves and the animal world living in harmony and the natural world without bugs and weeds!

Paul encourages us as he encouraged the Philippians two thousand years ago, to anticipate and live in that realm now. It’s worth the discipline and the wait. If we live in and for our selfish appetites and desires now, we disqualify ourselves from enjoying the eternal bliss of a life beyond our imagination. Is it worth it? We can’t have both.

Like Jesus, Paul viewed all the events of his life, good and bad, from God’s perspective and adjusted his thoughts, his attitude and his responses towards trust and obedience. Circumstances that seemed disastrous at the time turned out for the good when he trusted God instead of resisting and rebelling. Even his imprisonment, uncomfortable as it was, turned out for good, and he was able to rejoice, first in the outcome and then in anticipation of the outcome because Jesus was in the driving seat,

Paul experienced this so often that he could say with confidence that Jesus would put everything right when He returned and took up the reins of government here on earth. We can only be part of that righteous rule if we submit to Him now and live in this world as citizens of His kingdom. We have to make the choice now. Which model are we to follow? Following the world’s model takes no effort at all. Just keep going as we are. To follow Jesus means learning to say no to our selfish desires and yes to His Spirit in us.

We are free to choose our way in life but we are not free to choose the consequences. Follow Jesus and the outcome is eternal life. Follow the flesh and the result is unthinkable

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Follow My Example

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FOLLOW MY EXAMPLE

“All of us, then, 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.

“Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.” Philippians 3:15-17.

Paul sounds rather arrogant, doesn’t he? Follow my example! What right did he have to set himself up as an example? Didn’t Jesus say that, if we judge others, the same measure we use to judge will be used against us? What do we use to measure other people? Usually ourselves. So how Paul could set himself up as an example for other people to follow?

Paul was not being self-righteous or arrogant, as we would suppose. He was acting like a true rabbi. A rabbi’s job was to model his “yoke”, his teachings based on the way he understood the Torah – the Law of Moses – and the way he put his teachings into practice in his own life, and to “bind” his yoke on his disciples – those whom he called to follow him.

“Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:1.

On the Damascus road, Paul had become a follower of his rabbi, Jesus. As he had learned his rabbi’s yoke and put it into practice in his life, being “loosed” from the yoke of Pharisaism which he had followed from his youth, so it was his duty to bind his yoke on his followers. In no way did Paul set himself up as the measure of righteousness. Jesus was the standard and, just as Jesus modelled the life of a son and invited people to follow him, so Paul followed Jesus as his pattern, and called people to follow him. He was simply making visible to the next generation what Jesus had made visible to His disciples.

It is reassuring to know that, at the same time, Paul did not expect perfection from his followers. He knew that maturing was a process which took a lifetime to work out. All he could do was to be the model and urge believers to follow him and put it into practice in their daily lives. He also depended on the Holy Spirit to reveal the way to them and to enable them to obey as they understood and believed what Paul had taught them.

The main hindrance which Paul understood very well, was translating their understanding into everyday living. It was no use having the knowledge in their heads, but not doing what they knew and believed.

“…Everything that does not come from faith is sin.” Romans 14:32b.

This opens us a truth we need to understand. It is possible to have two opposing beliefs at the same time. Let me explain. You may believe that God will provide everything you need because He is your Father. That belief will work for you as long as you are earning a steady income. But what would happen if you were to lose your job? You would go into a tailspin of anxiety and worry. Why? Your experience and the emotions it has produced has cancelled out your trust unless your previous experience has been of God’s provision in times of crisis.

Your mind will tell you one thing; your emotions will tell you another, and usually your emotions win. You will believe what feels true, not what is true and respond to that belief instead of to God’s promise.

“So,” Paul said, “let’s not go backwards by failing to live up to the measure of maturity we have already attained.” Life is a journey. As believers in Jesus, we are all going somewhere. Paul called it “maturity”. What is maturity? According to him, maturity has to do with becoming one in Christ.

“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:11-13.

Paul’s counsel was, “Keep moving. If you stop, you’ll start going backwards.” Now that’s good advice, don’t you think?

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.