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.

Philippians 1:25, 26 - Faith and Joy for the Journey

Philippians 1:25, 26  

       

Knowing this, I am convinced that I will remain alive so I can continue to help all of you grow and experience the joy of your faith. And when I come to you again, you will have even more reason to take pride in Christ Jesus because of what he is doing through me. 

As found in the verses before verse 25, Paul said he knew that it was better that he live so that he could continue to nurture the churches like the Philippian church. Now, he says he is convinced that he will not only stay alive but be a help to them for two reasons:  to help them to grow spiritually and to experience the joy of their faith. Progress is always so important, gaining ground.

Then, the second reason he gave is especially interesting. I wonder why we even try to gain ground and grow in faith if we do not know and feel the joy of Jesus during the process. I think our joyless hours come from forgetting what it is we have because of Jesus. Paul thought this joy was so important that making sure his church family had that joy was the second of his reasons for living. He wanted to attract them to Jesus.

We need to remember these two goals when sharing Jesus with others because it is not enough to merely help them grow in their faith. We must be burdened that they have joy in their journey. This joy is what Jesus wanted us all to have along with His love:

^”When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.  I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!  This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you” (John 15:10-12 NLT).

Eve

If Eve had latched on to this faith and joy, the days experiencing the results of her sin would have been so much easier to bear. She would have had something real to give to her children to inspire them to live by faith and enter into the joy that comes from God, their Creator.

Mary

Jesus mother had faith and I think she found that joy in her daily life. Certainly, living with Jesus she saw these two principles working together in His simple faith and joy. This faith and joy must have helped her through the sorrows and pain that came in her life.

My Prayer

Dear Lord, please help your faith and joy to be at work in my life so that others will be attracted to you and the life you want them to have. Please forgive me for not seeking faith and joy more earnestly so that others could plainly see them. May I today be a blessing that draws others to you and your joy and heart of love. I can pray this because of Jesus! Amen.

Philippians 1:15-19

Philippians 1:15-19

 It’s true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry. But others preach about Christ with pure motives. They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the Good News.  Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me.  But that doesn’t matter. Whether their motives are false or genuine, the message about Christ is being preached either way, so I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice.  For I know that as you pray for me and the Spirit of Jesus Christ helps me, this will lead to my deliverance.

Paul felt the attitude from those who were jealous of his influence and talent and tried to become more popular than he was while he was imprisoned. Rivalry and selfish ambition is not without its hurt in the cause of Christ who wanted all His people to consider themselves brothers and sisters, on level ground with other. Still Paul knew that God uses whatever He can, and good was being accomplished. Christ and the Good News of Him were being preached. Getting the word out about Jesus was what was important to Paul, and He was glad that the Gospel was being preached.

Do we concentrate on what is most important and leave other peoples’ attitudes against us with God? Are we more interested in the success of the cause of Christ and the people who are coming to Christ than we are our own personal success and reputation? We must be completely unified with Christ and His cause and He must work His miracle in our hearts so that we are completely sold on the value of what concerned Paul most.

Eve

God tried to reach Eve long ago and to win her to His side. She had the same opportunity with her children as each of us with those around us. She could have wanted nothing more than to see the Good News of Hope that God had presented to her and Adam be the ruling influence in her own life and the theme that she always communicated to her children.

Mary

Mary could have studied out the role of Jesus on earth in her studies of the Scriptures. She seems to have been willing to do whatever God wanted her to do. As a young girl she felt the cost of serving God in her own life and reputation. As time marched on, she was a concerned mother. Additionally, she was human and not at all perfect. Still through the years in her experience with Jesus, she learned more about God and His wonderful plan. Her entire life was wrapped up in this plan and the Good News.

My Prayer

My dear Father God,

Thank you for the privilege to have even a small part in Your work here in this world. Thank You that I can be a Christian, know about You and the Good News. Lord, I want to really know You and let You be first in my life. Please help me not to be selfish and look out for myself. Help me not to care about what others do or say for or against me. Help me to be motivated by You and the success of Your great cause of Love. I know Your Hope is mine because of Jesus. Amen.

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).