Helping Others--Being Part of the Team

Philippians 2:25-27:

Meanwhile, I thought I should send Epaphroditus back to you. He is a true brother, co-worker, and fellow soldier. And he was your messenger to help me in my need. I am sending him because he has been longing to see you, and he was very distressed that you heard he was ill. And he certainly was ill; in fact, he almost died. But God had mercy on him—and also on me, so that I would not have one sorrow after another.

No one should think their gift and contribution in life is too small to be significant if they have given their best. Those who help and assist others are just as needed as are the ones who they help and assist. Paul was in great need of special help while he was in prison when he wrote this letter to the Philippian believers. They sent Epaphroditus to Paul, and Paul said he was “a true brother, co-worker, and fellow soldier.” Any of us believers today would do well if someone could say the same about us that you and I are  true brothers, sisters, co-workers and fellow soldiers for Christ” in the last days before Jesus returns.

Eve

Since the beginning of time, women were created to help. Somehow, this role has been turned in our thoughts to a degrading status that must be shaken off our backs. The position of “help-meet” has been made to seem like something we must overcome in order to reach our full potential. How unfortunate is this thinking! While some of us have talents and opportunities that make us leaders, all of us can be a help to others.

Jesus has taught us that it is an honor to serve. In service, we are following His example (like when He washed the feet of the disciples and told them to do this type of service). Being a blessing brings blessings. When we use our opportunities, means and talents in service to others, our lives are fulfilled and blessed. Even doing the most menial service tasks that others need has been honored by the King and Creator of all by His own example!

Mary

When Mary believed what God told her and accepted the role as the mother of Jesus, she elevated motherhood as God intended it should be elevated. However, motherhood is a nurturing and serving role. Giving and caring needs our hands as well as our hearts. God has placed in the hearts of women a special gift for such nurturing.

Helping is a wonderful thing! The world does not go around without it! In the natural world, plants and animals work together for survival. In the human world, we each must help each other in order to survive together alive. Equality is not as important as the willingness to be a team player and do our part as it comes to us. Meanwhile, doing our part to help “the team” puts us on an equal playing field with every other human no matter what we do or what our part may be.

My Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father:

Thank you for showing us by this story of Paul and Epaphroditus that each of us is significant when we give our best to serve You through our service to others. Please help me today to do my part whatever it is with my heart. Help me to look to you and Your love so that I can be like You, like Jesus when He served as a human in this world and gave us His example to follow. Because of Jesus giving everything for us we can pray. Amen!

Helping You to Do What He Wants

Philippians 2:12, 13

Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.  For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.

Paul pleaded with the church people in Philippi to keep on doing those good things that he had taught them to do. He knew it was important for them to seek God first and above all else.  He knew from his own experience just how earnestly we must strive for the right. Still, he adds the wonderful truth and promise that God works inside us to give us the desire and the ability, the strength and power to do what He wants us to do.

How freeing and liberating it is to me to know that I can depend on God to give me everything I need so that I can keep stepping out and forward in obedience. Sometimes, I do not even desire what is right, but I can pray that God will step in and create that desire for doing what is right in my heart. The core of who I am and what I want to do can improve, and I really can become what I was always meant to be.

I do not have any limitations on abilities to keep growing in God and His plan for my life. As I keep on going in faith that God will lift me up, I am enabled by Him to do those things that make His heart glad. Meanwhile, I can know that what He wants is all for my good because that is what gives Him joy, my progress and the love I return to Him. No life is better than living it daily in submission to the miraculous saving power of God to transform me, to change what I do and to ennoble my motives for living and doing.

Eve

Eve had an entire lifetime of more than 900 years in which to choose God’s power working in her to overcome where she had failed in the Garden of Eden. We do not know how she lived her life other than the fact that she was a mother, having many children and caring for them every day. Maybe as she saw the grace she wanted to give to her children, she understood more of the love and grace of God for herself. Certainly, she had many years in which to grow wise and mentor those generations that came after her.

Mary

Mary, we are told, thought about things that happened and took things as they came to her. (See Luke 2:19.) She was with the believers after Jesus died, and so she learned just what the plan of salvation was really all about. I think there were scriptures in Mary’s home because Jesus knew so much of them when He was only 12 years old. Still, she did not fully understand Jesus’ mission on earth until after the resurrection.
The same is true today; I grow through the years of studying the Bible. I do not have all the answers at the beginning of my life, and I will keep learning throughout all eternity. Still, I am glad I have access to the Bible and can learn and grow. God really is at work in me.

I can look at others I know that are older and younger than I and know that we all grow at our own pace as God is working in us. My friend Esther may be older than me and studying her Bible every day, but she may always talk to me about how she is worried and afraid for herself and her children. She may have been a believer much longer than I, and  she still has daily doubts with which to struggle.

Then, Meg has only been a believer a short time. I know that she is studying her Bible, but she tells me that she loves to watch these shows on TV that I know promote immorality. I can pray for my friends, and I can ask them to pray for me. I hope that they do pray for me as they see in me those areas where I am far from perfect. We can encourage each other to keep striving for the right without a condemning spirit because we know how God is working in our own lives.

My Prayer

Dear Loving and Patient Father God—

Thank Your mercy on me as I grow. Thank you for the stories in the Bible about how You helped people grow in you throughout their lives. I can have hope from their stories and the promises in Philippians 2:12, 13 that I can show evidence of what You are doing in my life. You are helping me to want to do Your will and giving me the power to do Your will for my life. Then, I can pray for others when they share their lives and struggles with me. Please teach me how I can share the hope, love and mercy that I receive from You!! Thank You that this life is possible because of Jesus! Amen.

The Attitude of Jesus & What He Did: Philippians 2:5-8

Philippians 2:5-8

 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

 Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
 he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

I love to read this part about the beauty of Jesus’ humility, but that first thought that I must have the attitude of Christ Jesus seems like a tricky sentence unless I remember that what God tells me to do comes with His promise to provide for me all I need to accomplish it. Think about this promise! He will work this miracle in me and you that we can have the attitude of Jesus! To be like Jesus is an awe-inspiring thought and miracle.

I am so glad He is the One in charge because He is so loving and good. He knew He must always choose the hard and painful path in order to complete His plan and make a universe where everyone truly understood that He is fully trustworthy and loving. He continues to carry all the pain felt in this world until that time when He will say, “It is completed.”

Now even though I will not ever fully comprehend what Jesus has done and is doing and the sacrifices and suffering He endures, I pause and think on these verses. I am always amazed. I find volumes in the one above paragraph from Philippians chapter 2. I take it phrase by phrase and try to understand or at least catch a glimpse.

Eve

Would Eve despair if she saw the sufferings of Jesus? Or would she have had joy in the hope that He brought to this world through all of the things He endures for us? I see the mercy of God that she did not live to see just how bad things got in our world by the time Jesus was here. As it was, she lived through over 900 years of this world and saw much misery.

She had hoped and hoped to see Jesus come from her womb, but He did not. He waited until He knew the time was right, and none of us can really comprehend when the time is right for important world events like He can. He came and then returned to the Father with the promise to come again. We wait, work and live until that time.

Mary

What must life have been like for her before the resurrection when the scriptures about the Messiah made sense with the life of Jesus? She lived all of those years remembering that the prophet Simeon had told her in the temple that a sword would pierce her soul. She watched the life of Jesus and wondered that He really was God’s Son, but He lived a life of shame and humiliation in poverty. So many things she didn't understand, but many of them became clear after Jesus rose from the dead and she listened to the disciples discussing the prophecies together.

How wonderful it must have been to be with those disciples and the other women who believed in Jesus after He died and rose again. I am so glad that Mary had the chance to know the truth about her Son after those years of wondering and confusion. She understood the Lamb giving His life for sinners and the plan of salvation. She had trusted and obeyed through the years even though she did not understand, but joy must have thrilled her when she did comprehend the answers to those questions she had about Jesus’ life in this world.

My Prayer

Dear Lord,

I come to You in awe of You and Your love and humility. Please help me to let Your attitude inside so that I can be like You. This wonderful miracle is Your promise. Please help me to remember and think about all that You have done and are doing. The more I look to You the more like You I can become. Thank You for taking all the risks and suffering to make Your life and love available to me! Thank You that this love and life is available to all people who will accept the gift! Thank You, Jesus! Amen.

Philippians 1:12-14

Philippians 1:12-14

 And I want you to know, my dear brothers and sisters,that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News.  For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I am in chains because of Christ.  And because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God’s message without fear.

Much was happening to Paul. He was in an incredibly dire living situation, incarcerated with Roman guards on constant watch. Still, he had such joy in Jesus and was so willing to suffer any hardship if he could feel the pain for Jesus. His focus was on Jesus’ cause here on earth and what would help “spread the Good News.” He saw that it was not about Paul, but about Jesus and others. Paul was glad that he was incapable of preaching because the entire church in Rome was encouraged to share the Gospel. They were out there doing the work, inspired by Paul and his being in their city in prison.

  Then, Paul also saw that the real reason for his imprisonment was known. He wanted the guards and people on up the line even into Caesar’s palace to know that he was in prison because of his faith in Jesus. They might become curious as to who Jesus is and want to check out the Christian faith for themselves.

Eve

  Did Eve ever get to the point where she was so attracted by the love of God that God’s cause was her life focus? Did she try to show the love and hope of God to her children? God would have comforted her heart through the years as she saw the result of her sin if she had kept looking to Him and letting God’s love hold her heart. She had to come to surrender her ability to make things better. She had to accept that she might not be the mother of the One who was to come and rescue her children from sin and the devil. We do not know if she surrendered to God and to letting His love heal her.

Mary

  Mary did focus on doing her best to follow God’s leading in her young motherhood and caring for the Child, Jesus. She was a mother that was willing to put everything she had and was on the line for this Boy of hers.  She was a mother, but she was dedicated to letting God do with her life what He planned. She is such a role model for women of any age today. All of us can look at her dedication throughout her life and let our hearts open. We can be inspired to give ourselves completely over to God’s will like she did.

My Prayer

My Father in Heaven,

Thank You for not being far away. You are right here with me on Planet Earth. Please let me live with the attitude of surrender to You and full dedication to what You want in whatever circumstances come my way. You are at work through everything that occurs. Help me to always believe You. Since I am Yours, everything that happens to me will work for good. Help me to be fully committed to Your cause, Your winning team. I can do this because of Jesus! Amen!

Philippians 1:9-11

"I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ's return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation--the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ--for this will bring much glory and praise to God" (Philippians 1:9-11 NLT).

  What is more important than having more love, knowledge, understanding, and righteous character from God? Isn't this a beautiful prayer Paul prayed for his close friends in Philippi? It is a prayer I can pray for myself and for others.

Another point I find in Paul's prayer is that it is as we have God's love, knowledge, and understanding, we can understand what really matters and we can live pure and blameless lives until Christ returns.
Then, Paul prays that we will be filled with the fruit of our salvation, which is that right character that Jesus grows in our lives. This right character that Jesus grows is what brings glory and praise to God. This is the fruit, the success story that truly matters in our lives.

Eve

Did Eve look for this fruit after she and her husband left the garden? As her children were born and grew, did she try to teach them about what really mattered in life and draw their little hearts to want to choose God's way?

She did not have a Bible to which to turn for guidance, and she could not walk with God each evening and speak to Him face to face anymore. Still, Adam and she had good minds and could easily remember all they had learned from God and the angels when they spoke together in the Garden of Eden. They could pass on this good knowledge and the wisdom they had gleaned. They could pray together for their children and for future generations.

Mary

I think Mary must have thought much about what really mattered. She must have desired more love, understanding and knowledge to parent Jesus. Then, living with Jesus every day, even though He was fully human, must have caused her to be astonished at his love, knowledge, and understanding. He had a right character and a focus on honoring God.

The Bible tells us that she gathered the events of Jesus' birth and the other people who acknowledged Him and thought about them in her heart. As He grew, she must have had many times of thoughtfulness concerning Him. She must have prayed for herself and for Jesus through the years.

My Prayer

Lord, my Father,

Please help me to pray this prayer of Paul's over my life and over the lives of my loved ones. Please help me to focus on You and the things that really matter. Thank You that Jesus said, in Matthew 6:33, that when we seek Your kingdom and Your way of doing things, all else will be granted to us as well. I praise You in the name of Jesus. Amen!

Philippians 1:3-8

"Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now. And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

"So it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a special place in my heart. You share with me the special favor of God, both in my imprisonment and in defending and confirming the truth of the Good News. God knows how much I love you and long for you with the tender compassion of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:3-8 NLT)

Why does thinking of these people thrill Paul and make him want to thank his God? And why is he so glad when he prays for them every day?

1. From the time when they first heard his message about the Good News of Jesus they have partnered with him, giving him support and help in the work.
2. He knows that God started a great work in their lives and He will complete it when Jesus comes back to take his people home.
3. He has no guilt in having a special place in his heart for them because they share with him in imprisonment, and they share the defense and validation of the truth of what he preaches? The Good News!
4. He loves these people and a bond of love that comes because of Christ Jesus.

One of the best things we can do in life is to make good use of what others have invested in our lives. So many people have given to me to help me along life's pathway. I sometimes wish there was a better way I could let them know what they have meant to me.

Here in these verses from Paul's letter to the Philippian believers, I see what is most important. I could never bless them all to the extent they have blessed me, but I can continue the giving. I can enter into the work of giving. I can support them and encourage them best by carrying on the work they do by giving and passing on the favor. My labor will demonstrate that what they have done for me has been successful and I am able to contribute and enrich because I have been nurtured.

When they see that what they have done for me has made a difference and I am "carrying on the torch," they will be glad they helped me and feel joy because God is multiplying the gift they gave when they invested in my life. They will see that God is going to keep working in my life until my life is complete. Additionally, the gift keeps on giving both ways. Through my carrying on the vision, paying forward to others, they are encouraged by the success of helping me; they feel joy and are encouraged to continue giving and enrich still other people's lives.

Those who have given to us will have a special place in their hearts for us, especially, if we take opportunities that come our way to support them when they are struggling on their journey.  When they see that we care about giving and are willing to sacrifice for the good of them and others, their hearts will warm and they will feel rewarded in their labors.

Something special happens that is seen nowhere else on earth when Christians truly unite in the Love that Jesus gives them. Unique bonds are formed that cannot be understood even if they are observed, unless people know Jesus Christ personally and have felt personally the bond with other like-minded Christians. Certain, special joy only Jesus can give.

My Prayer

Dear Father above All,

Thank you so much for the joy and the bonds of your family because of Jesus. Thank you for the precious gift you give each one of us in the form of people who bless our lives and help us on our way. I have been so blessed by different people throughout my life. They have shown me your love and care. Help me to pass on the same love and care to others, and please enrich those who have enriched my life. All of these riches come because of Jesus!

Philippians 1:1&2

Greetings from Paul

"This letter is from Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus.

"I am writing to all of God's holy people in Philippi who belong to Christ Jesus, including the elders and deacon. May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace" (Philippians 1:1, 2).

This study comes from the personal meditations of Jackie Locke. I have chosen to accept Christ Jesus. I am His, his daughter, his servant, free in Him. I am convinced of my own need to study this book of Philippians verse by verse, and I hope this study can be a springboard for the personal study of others and the investigation of this important book.

Additionally, I want to explore the lives Eve and Mary as well as other godly women as their lives relate with the themes in the letter of Philippians written by Paul. This connecting will relate to what I have been learning in my own life. I always have a lot to learn!

May God our heavenly father and His Son, Jesus, give us their grace and peace as we study. I need this grace and peace. Paul prayed that the people of the church of Philippi have God's grace and peace-two powerful gifts. These are gifts from God to us and we can accept them from Him with thankfulness. Then, His grace and His peace can be ours.

The book of Philippians explains point by point the life of faith. Faith is a key ingredient to living the Christian life. One of my very favorite texts about faith contains the words her cousin Elizabeth spoke to Mary while she was pregnant with Jesus,

"You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said" (Luke 1:45 NLT).