YEAR 1, WEEK 30, Day 4, Thursday, 25 July 2024

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Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Thursday, 25 July 2024:

Philippians 3:1 – Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.

Primarily, Christians should be known for their love, joy, and peace (Galatians 5:22), that fruit of the Spirit which comes naturally from those who abide in Christ (John 15), who place their hope in Christ, and who seek unity with Christ as their goal in life. Those who find their joy in the unchangeable, immovable God will have unshakeable joy, love, and peace, a soul rest which comes from having the Almighty as your Daddy (Psalm 91; Galatians 4:6). In this portion of Paul’s letter where he encourages us to “hold true to what we have attained,” (v. 16), Paul starts with the direction to rejoice, re-joice, or joy again. Sometimes we lose perspective and lose our joy, and Paul knows we all need to be reminded of our reality in Christ, a reality which can’t be seen or understood by those without hope around us who are panicking while we rest at the back of the boat (see Matthew 8 and Mark 4). So, how do you get your joy back in those moments when you start to lose it? Here are some action steps: 1) Recite memory verses of your choosing on your security in Christ. 2) Immediately replace your worrying with prayer, thanking God for specific blessings in your life before asking for anything 3) Stop thinking about your problem or issue and start serving others as an act of fellowship with Jesus and gift of worship to Him. 4) Stop thinking about what you don’t have, and verbally express (even if it is only to you and God) gratitude for what you do have while you make the most of it. 5) Remove all negative media and messages from your life and replace them with sermons, praises, and hymns.

“…put not confidence in the flesh…. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ…. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.” If you hope and joy rests on anything other than Christ (your accomplishments, your blessings, etc.) you will lose it. If your hope and joy rests on Christ, it will only grow, and everything else will seem increasingly insignificant. If all you want from God is Him, He we give you what you want, and you will be continually, completely, and eternally satisfied.

• Psalm 5:11 — But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you.
• Psalm 9:14 — …that I may recount all your praises, that in the gates of the daughter of Zion I may rejoice in your salvation.
• Psalm 32:11 — Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!
• Psalm 40:16 — But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, “Great is the LORD!”
• Psalm 97:1 — The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!
• Psalm 118:24 — This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
• Psalm 119:162 — I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil.
• Isaiah 61:10 — I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
• Romans 12:12 — Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
• 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 — 1Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Philippians 3:12-16 – Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Though justified (declared “not guilty”) once and for all in Christ, Paul was still being sanctified (separated from sin and conformed to Christ), which is a life-long process, often a frustrating one –

• Romans 7:21-24 — So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Sanctification starts with the new birth in Christ, salvation by grace through faith in Jesus, when believers repent (change their mind and turn around) from sin and are no longer under sin’s dominion but are rather ‘slaves to righteousness’ –

• Romans 6:11-18 — So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

In salvation by grace through faith in Jesus, we WERE FREED from the PENALTY of sin once and for all; we ARE BEING freed from the POWER of sin in our lives through sanctification (we are no longer prisoners to sin but are still influenced by it); and we WILL BE FREED one day from the PRESENCE of sin in our lives when Christ returns – “He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (see Revelation 21) From the point of spiritual birth in Christ, through the grace and power of God, we spend a lifetime growing up in Christ, being conformed into the image of Christ, as God progressively changes our desires from selfish, worldly things to Him and Him alone. In salvation, we rest assured in the grace of God, in the power of God, and in the promise that He will complete in us the work that He started when Christ returns and we receive our glorified bodies (Philippians 1:6) –

• 2 Corinthians 3:18 — And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
• Colossians 3:10 — …and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
• Philippians 3:20-21 — But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
• 1 Corinthians 15:42-49 — What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect…” (Philippians 3:12) “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) In this life, we will not achieve perfection (1 John 1:8-10), but ‘resting’ and trusting in the grace of God, we still strive to realize what is already ours in Christ – “For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” (1 Timothy 4:10; also, 1 Thessalonians 4:4; Romans 8:13; Hebrews 12:14; 1 Corinthians 6:18; 2 Corinthians 7:1; 2 Peter 1:5-11) Christians are in a holy direction striving for holy perfection, that “upward call of God in Christ,” which is our life ambition.

Today, Paul gives us some good coaching on how to walk in the sanctification process: Don’t get frustrated. Acknowledge and never forget that you are not perfect but are being perfected through the power of the Holy Spirit. Press on! Don’t wallow in the past; learn from your mistakes, trust in God’s grace, and move on to what is ahead. Fail forward, not backwards. (vs 13-15) Find some good role models in the faith (but don’t idolize them) who can help you grow in your faith. (Philippians 3:17) And trust that God will do the work in you and complete the work in you. (Philippians 3:21)

“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 25 July 2024: Today, forget what lies behind, and strain forward to what lies ahead. Rest in God’s grace while striving for perfection –

• 1 John 2:5 — but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.
• 1 John 4:12 — No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.