Tag Archives: comfort

PARTNERS WITH GRACE

Bible Study, ,

Philippians 2:1-2 NLT
[1] “Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? [2] Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.”

Look at these qualities that foster
unity!

Encouragement…comfort…
fellowship…tenderness and compassion…all so real in God’s people but so foreign to people who don’t know Jesus. These are “kingdom” characteristics that are formed in people who have been joined to Jesus by faith and are growing in maturity…the love and unity the Holy Spirit produces.

Not only did Paul desire and call for all the aspects of partnership we have already explored, but he also pointed them to partnership which grew from within. The inward qualities of a believer, the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s transformation, made unity possible.

It’s all about attitude. This is what Meta says about attitude.

“Attitude refers to a person’s perspective, outlook, or disposition towards something, often influenced by their emotions, experiences, and values. It encompasses their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, shaping how they interact with and respond to various situations, people, and environments.”

That’s comprehensive, isn’t it! Paul points to the importance of the attitude that shapes the way God’s children navigate the world and relationships with people, with all their trials, temptations and challenges.

God’s grace has made this transformation possible. Without Him, people are doomed to live selfish, aggressive, and hostile lives, always pleasing and protecting themselves at the expense of others. Grace has freed us from the “me first” attitude that is self-destructive. “Ingrown eyeballs” give way to the attitude Jesus displayed…the self-giving love that made salvation possible.

The attitude of God’s children focuses on being and doing whatever builds others up. When believers foster this all-encompassing attitude, and partner with the character of Jesus in their hearts, they will find no place for selfish ambition and self-gratification in their relationships with others.

How important, then, that we apply this truth to ourselves. God has given us the priceless gift of His Spirit to align us with all the fruits of His grace. Not only has He provided the Spirit’s presence and power to transform our attitudes but He has also given us the supreme of all examples to follow…Jesus Himself, the epitome of perfect obedience and unselfish giving!

There is a particular challenge for preachers, teachers, and writers of the Word. How easy to become hypocrites by reading and expanding on God’s Word for the benefit of others without taking heed to what the Word is saying. We can eagerly press others into obedience without obeying ourselves!

There are no trials and tests in life beyond us if we heed God’s promise of enough grace for every situation. With the strength of His grace, we can be overcomers in our struggle against the pull of the flesh.

Let me illustrate. I have an elderly friend who struggles with memory loss. As her condition worsened, I became increasingly impatient and irritated with her. Try as I did to overcome my attitude, , I left her after each encounter feeling guilty and ashamed of falling repeatedly into the same trap. I cried out for God’s grace but it seemed that God was deaf.

After weeks of struggling with myself, something changed in me. The struggle was over. Grace began to free me from myself. What was difficult became easy. I began to interact with her with compassion and patience. God’s love in me which had evaded me for so long, began to change my attitude towards her.

You see, I realised that partnering with God’s grace is real. It cannot happen through self-effort. I think the Lord allowed me to struggle for a while to show me that it was He, through His Spirit in me, that made the change not me by the power of my self-will.

So, in all the issues of our lives, this partnership with the Holy Spirit is our only hope of obeying the Lord and producing the fruit that is evidence of God’s Spirit at work in us.

ON TO MATURITY

Bible Study, ,

ON TO MATURITY

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, of any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being in one spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking at your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.” Philippians 2:1-4.

Paul must have been relieved that he did not have to deal with false teaching or misconduct in the Philippian church. These people were a joy to him. Some of the churches he founded were still wading around in the shallows of false beliefs and ungodly behaviour. This group of people seemed to have grasped the truth from the beginning and were moving apace towards being mature in their faith and influential for Christ in their living out the gospel.

Paul was happy to be able to add some polish to their lives by urging them on to unity which was the high tide mark of the true church. The gospel and their faith in Christ had brought them into the realm of the Spirit of God where the values of the kingdom were becoming more meaningful and ever more evident in them despite their environment.

Like all the other churches, they were like lilies blooming in the swamp. All around them people lived in the ungodliness of their sinful natures. There were no boundaries to their wicked behaviour because they were living out the nature of the gods they worshipped. However, in the church and in their lives together, the values of the kingdom of God were appearing more and more: unity with Christ, the comfort of His love, caring and sharing among the people in the Body, tenderness and compassion, were all there in increasing measure.

This delighted Paul. It was what the gospel was all about – not just believing in Jesus as a passport to heaven, a free ticket to God’s forgiveness and access to all His blessings. The gospel was about yielding to Christ as their new Master and living in the world by His power and in line with His nature.

All this is moving towards the goal of God’s creation. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God to reflect Him by living in perfect harmony with him with one another and with the world which He created for them. God is one; He made the entire universe to be one, interconnected and interacting as a unit. Sin entered the world through Adam’s disobedience, disrupted the unity and brought death and destruction to God’s perfect creation.

Jesus came to earth, God in person, to restore the universe to its original state and to get God’s purpose back on track. Once the barrier of sin had been removed, God was able, through His Holy Spirit, to set His plan in motion to reunite estranged people to Himself and to each other. This was the evidence that Jesus accomplished what He had been sent to do.

Why does the church not understand this? Paul touched the nerve centre of man’s fallen nature – selfish ambition and vain conceit. As long as self rules, the life of that person will be out of sync with God’s intention to reunite everything in Christ as the head.

“For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross.” Colossians 1:19, 29, 20.

What is the key to real unity in the church? Paul gives us two simple steps: value others above yourselves and take care of the interests of others above your own. Is that difficult to do? Yes, it is if we are still alive to ourselves on the inside. No, it is not if we, like Paul, have died to ourselves and are alive to Christ and to what pleases Him. It all depends on how we view ourselves, alive or dead.

When we die to our old fleshly desires and appetites, we see ourselves from another perspective – not individuals taking care of ourselves first, but part of a living organism that functions as a unit, each part moving in unity with those around him. The goal is not for selfish benefit but for the benefit of the whole body. Then we can begin to experience heaven right here on earth and convince the world that Jesus was who He said He was and that He really came from heaven to restore everything that went wrong in the beginning.

Now Paul invites us to be a part of eternal plan!

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.

MOLLY AND ME – BELONGING

Christian Life, , , ,

I remember the day I fetched Molly from the breeder. She wasn’t actually my first choice.

I was given a Yorkshire terrier puppy as a farewell gift when I left the church and my role as pastoral assistant to move to another city. Tosca, my Yorkie, was six weeks old. After her first night, when she missed her mother and her siblings, she settled down into a rambunctious, independent little bundle of mischief. I adored her, but she became a mystery to me.

I still continued to serve the church in a once-a-week capacity by travelling to my ex hometown to work in the office.

Two of Tosca’s siblings had been bought by my pastor and the playschool administrator with whom I stayed overnight every week. The three siblings spent two days every week romping and sleeping together in the office complex but, as soon as I arrived back home, Tosca would become a morose, even depressed little creature. She refused to eat and slept most of the day – until I realised that she was lonely. Another Yorkie as a companion would have been just too much so I settled for a miniature dachshund.

By this time, Tosca was five months old and Molly six weeks. At first, Tosca would have nothing to do with Molly because she couldn’t figure out what she was! However, after a few days, they became inseparable. Molly loved Tosca so much that she insisted on sleeping, not just in her bed but as close as she could to her, mostly lying against her or on top of her.

Then came the terrible day I shall never forget. I took Tosca to the SPCA to be spayed when she was six months old. Never imagining for a moment that anything would go wrong, I left her in the capable hands of the vet, only to receive a phonecall a few hours later from the distraught assistant to tell me that Tosca had reacted to the anaesthetic. I rushed out to the SPCA and there lay my little treasure, all the life with her energy and zest gone out of her. I was devastated!

Fortunately, I still had my little Molly. Needless to say, with her little canine companion no longer there to cuddle up to, she bonded even more strongly with me. My bed became her place of comfort! She has never slept anywhere else at night, as close as she can get to me, since that day.

Molly is truly mine. She loves people (at least those she knows)! She makes a huge fuss of my family and the friends who visit from time to time, but she knows to whom she belongs. When she is through playing or exploring the garden for snails, she comes running into the house and insists that I pick her up so that she can cuddle up on my lap and sleep in absolute contentment.

O, how our heavenly Father longs that we would know and understand what it means to belong to Him. I bought Molly with hard cash. He bought us with the precious blood of His Son! Molly is my pet. We are His beloved sons and daughters. Molly runs to me for protection, for food, and for comfort and companionship. Father God wants us to run to Him for every need and in every situation because He is our source. Without Him, we are nothing.

With great yearning after His wayward people. He urged,

“But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you, O Israel, the one who formed you says, ‘Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.’  (Isaiah 43:1 – NLT)

Jesus assured us:

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and He is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand.” (John 10:27-28 – NLT) 

Do you belong to Him?

Fellow Workers

Bible Study, , ,

FELLOW WORKERS

My fellow prisoner, Aristarchus, sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. (You have received instructions about him; if he comes, welcome him). Jesus, who is called Justus, also sends greetings. These are the only Jews among my co-workers for the kingdom of God, and they have proved a comfort to me (Col. 4: 10-11)

Aristarchus, Mark and Justus – only three Jews among the many people that Paul had won to Christ! It’s no wonder Paul said that they were a comfort to him! He grieved for his own people because they were stubborn in their unbelief and in their rejection of Jesus Christ as their Messiah. Yet Paul was comforted by the few Jews who had believed, and were ready to suffer for Christ as Aristarchus proved by being in prison alongside Paul for his faith in Jesus.

One of the names among the Jewish believers Paul mentioned is of special interest. At the beginning of his second missionary journey, Paul had a fall-out with Barnabas over John Mark because Mark had deserted them after only a short time as a fellow traveller on their first missionary journey.  What was the issue? Mark was Barnabas’s cousin. It was Barnabas who decided to take him along with them after they were appointed by the Holy Spirit to take the gospel to the world.

Was this another ‘Abraham and Lot’ situation? God told Abraham to leave his homeland and his family and go to the land He would show him. Abraham left his home, but he took his nephew, Lot, with him which proved to be a wrong move. Lot cause him many problems in the land of Canaan which he would have avoided had he only obeyed God fully.

The Holy Spirit chose Paul and Barnabas for missionary work, which did not include Mark. Barnabas decided to take him along – a decision which later resulted in a split between them because of Mark’s desertion when they left the island of Cyprus. Paul was unwilling to risk taking him along again (Acts 15; 36-40); they had a sharp disagreement and they parted company.

Yet in this letter Paul singled Mark out for special mention. Firstly, he was among the Jewish believers who were with Paul at the time of his writing, and who brought comfort to him in his imprisonment. Secondly, it seems that the rift had been healed between Mark and Paul, and that John Mark had become a faithful believer instead of a deserter.

Perhaps Barnabas’s confidence in Mark had influenced him to put his roots down into Christ. Barnabas was that kind of a man. After Paul’s conversion, it was Barnabas who gave him the benefit of the doubt when the apostles in Jerusalem were suspicious of him. After all, was he not the arch-persecutor of the believers, and the reason many of them had suffered and even died for their faith in Jesus?

Barnabas was a generous man. He vouched for Paul when the others would have nothing to do with him and his confidence in him was rewarded. Paul turned out to be what Barnabas expected – a true and faithful man of God.

Now Paul speaks of Mark with warmth as one of those who brought him comfort. Was it Barnabas’s acceptance of Mark in spite of his failure that influenced Paul to give him another chance? With Barnabas as his example, at some point Paul reconciled with both Barnabas and Mark and also gave Mark a second chance – and he was not disappointed.

We can learn a valuable lesson from this incident. Paul was ready to dump Mark because of his failure but Barnabas was not. It was Barnabas’s generous attitude, not Paul’s judgmental behaviour, which won Mark and brought him back to become a dear brother to Paul and faithful servant of Jesus.

What if Barnabas had also judged and rejected him? What would have become of him? Would he have ever been written in God’s story as a Jewish believer who brought comfort to Paul and who was to be welcomed by the church in Colossae? I don’t think so!

It pays to be generous is our love for and confidence in our fellow believers because we never know, in the end, what a difference it might make to someone who has taken a wrong turn and needs to be brought back.

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.

 

On To Maturity

Bible Study, , , ,

ON TO MATURITY

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, of any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being in one spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking at your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.” Philippians 2:1-4.

Paul must have been relieved that he did not have to deal with false teaching or misconduct in the Philippian church. These people were a joy to him. Some of the churches he founded were still wading around in the shallows of false beliefs and ungodly behaviour. This group of people seemed to have grasped the truth from the beginning and were moving apace towards being mature in their faith and influential for Christ in their living out the gospel.

Paul was happy to be able to add some polish to their lives by urging them on to unity which was the high tide mark of the true church. The gospel and their faith in Christ had brought them into the realm of the Spirit of God where the values of the kingdom were becoming more meaningful and ever more evident in them in spite of their environment.

Like all the other churches, they were like lilies blooming in the swamp. All around them people lived in the ungodliness of their sinful natures. There were no boundaries to their sinful behaviour because they were living out the nature of the gods they worshipped. But, in the church and in their lives together, the values of the kingdom of God were appearing more and more: unity with Christ, the comfort of His love, caring and sharing among the people in the Body, tenderness and compassion, were all there in increasing measure.

This delighted Paul. It was what the gospel was all about – not just believing in Jesus as a passport to heaven, a free ticket to God’s forgiveness and access to all His blessings. The gospel was about yielding to Christ as their new Master and living in the world by His power and in line with His nature.

All this is moving towards the goal of God’s creation. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God to reflect Him by living in perfect harmony with him with one another and with the world which He created for them. God is one; He made the entire universe to be one, interconnected and interacting as a unit. Sin entered the world through Adam’s disobedience, disrupted the unity and brought death and destruction to God’s perfect creation.

Jesus came to earth, God in person, to restore the universe to its original state and to get God’s purpose back on track. Once the barrier of sin had been removed, God was able, through His Holy Spirit, to set His plan in motion to reunite estranged people to himself and to each other. This was the evidence that Jesus accomplished what He had been sent to do.

Why does the church not understand this? Paul touched the nerve centre of man’s fallen nature – selfish ambition and vain conceit. As long as self rules, the life of that person will be out of sync with God’s intention to reunite everything in Christ as the head.

“For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross.” Colossians 1:19, 29, 20.

What is the key to real unity in the church? Paul gives us two simple steps: value others above yourselves and take care of the interests of others above your own. Is that difficult to do? Yes, it is if we are still alive to ourselves on the inside. No, it is not if we, like Paul, have died to ourselves and are alive to Christ and to what pleases Him. It all depends on how we view ourselves, alive or dead.

When we die to our old fleshly desires and appetites, we see ourselves from another perspective – not individuals taking care of ourselves first, but part of a living organism that functions as a unit, each part moving in unity with those around him. The goal is not for selfish benefit but for the benefit of the whole body. That’s when we can begin to experience heaven right here on earth and convince the world that Jesus was who He said He was and that He really came from heaven to restore everything that went wrong in the beginning.

Now Paul invites us to be a part of that!

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.