Category Archives: Epistles

>-P2R Week 11- Signs of a True Believer and Those Credentials that Don’t Impress God.

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Week 11 :: Philippians 3:1-6

1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.
To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.
2 Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers,
look out for those who mutilate the flesh.
3 For we are the circumcision,
who worship by the Spirit of God
and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—
4 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also.
If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more:
5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel,
of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;
6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church;
as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

– Philippians 3:1-6

 We just finished week 11 of the P2R project! I am so excited, it has been a great blessing and a  challenge. It has been like finding a gem, one that for so long I heard that could be mine and I didn’t go get it. Working through the habit of memorizing a whole book of the Bible, has made a great impact in my life.

Studying this week’s I learned many things but one particular lesson, is that when we commit to study and memorize all of God’s Word, when we enter into the discipline of memorizing a whole book, we will find ourselves chewing, meditating on passages that we would never to choose to study in depth otherwise, and are full of wisdom from above.

Some of the things I learned while studying these verses (reading MacArthur’s commentary)  are these:
Signs of true believers:

1. True believers rejoice in the Lord (3:1)

“Joy persists in the face of weakness, pain, suffering, even death (cf. James 1:2). Biblical joy produces a deep confidence in the future that is based on trust in God’s purpose and power. It results in the absence of any ultimate fear, since the relationship on which it is based is eternal and unshakeable (cf. Ps.16:11; John 16:22). Nor is it a humanly produced emotion; that Paul commands it shows that rejoicing is an act of the will in choosing to obey God. The result is a supernaturally produced emotion, the fruit of walking in the Spirit (Rom. 14:17; Gal. 5:22). Thus, rejoicing marks true believers”

2. True believers exercise discernment. (v.3: 1b-2)

“His strong and direct warning implies another distinguishing mark of true believers: their ability to discern. No one can be saved who does not understand the fundamental truths of the gospel (Rom. 6:17; 10:14, 17). But since discernment, like faith, needs to grow and mature, pastors and elders must warn the church of false teachers (Eph. 4:11–14). Thus, for Paul to write the same things again was no trouble to him, because it was a necessary safeguard for the Philippians. False teachers, proclaiming salvation through ritual, ceremony, and legalism, posed a serious threat to them. Safeguard (asphals) literally means not to trip, stumble, or be overthrown.”

3. True believers worship in the Spirit. (3:3)

“The first quality of a genuine believer is a heart that overflows with worship. The origin of that worship is supernatural, since the Spirit of God generates it. It involves adoration and praise to God, and transcends outward rituals or ceremonies. Humans are inveterate worshipers. But worship prompted by culture, tradition, guilt, fear, desire for acceptance and popularity, or to gain blessings is unacceptable to God. The indwelling Holy Spirit prompts true and acceptable worship out of love for the Lord. Since He only indwells Christians (Rom. 8:9), only they can truly worship their Savior”

4. True worshipers glory in Christ Jesus (3:3b)

“True Christians give credit for all they are and have to the Lord Jesus Christ… In contrast false believers “boast according to the flesh” (2Cor. 11:18), believing that their good works and religious activities earn them favor with God.”

5. True Worshipers put no confidence in the flesh. (3:3c)

“The flesh represents man’s fallen, unredeemed humanness; it pictures human ability apart from God. Unlike the “many {who} boast according to the flesh” (2Cor. 11:18), true Christians put no confidence in it… Therefore, it is a distinguish characteristic of the redeemed that they “do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit'”


Then Paul lists seven credentials, characteristics, achievements, privileges and rights that do not impress God:

1. Salvation is not by ritual (3:5a)

2. Salvation is not by race. (3:5b)

3. Salvation is not by rank (3:5c)

4. Salvation is not by tradition (3:5d)

5. Salvation is not by religion (3:5e)

6. Salvation is not by sincerity (3:6a)

“Paul was sincere, but wrong. The world is full of people who, like him, are sincere in their religious beliefs. They will make any effort, pay any price, and sacrifice anything in their attempts to please God. They may be devout, orthodox Jews, loyal Roman Catholics who attend mass regularly, or even Protestants who are involved in church services and ceremonies. They may pray, fast, or live in poverty, and seek to do human good. but religious zeal guarantees nothing. Those people can be absolutely wrong. When Paul faced the reality of Jesus christ, the zealous persecutor of the church realized that his misguided zeal was a spiritual killer and belonged in the spiritual loss column”

7. Salvation is not by legalistic righteousness. (3:6b)

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I encourage you today,  dear friend, choose one Epistle, get a commentary on that Epistle and start memorizing and studying it today. You will find a  precious gem that you will sure treasure forever in your heart.

>Make Me, O Lord, Like Timothy and Epaphroditus

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>I finished this week memorizing chapters 1 and 2 of Philippians.  Chapter 2 verses 19- 24 speak to us about Timothy and verses 25- 30 reveal to us another godly man’s characteristics, his name was Epaphroditus.

This is my prayer after being meditating on these verses these past weeks.

Lord, I acknowledge that all your Word is inspired by you, breathed by You; and it is profitable for teaching me how to live, it is profitable for correction and for training me in righteousness, so that I may be competent, equipped for every good work. Lord, I am so grateful that you inspired Paul to write this letter to the Philippians; thank you because as I study it, I see that even in those words which I some times read without reverence and a learning spirit, You speak to us.

Lord, create in my a heart like the one Timothy had; it amazes me to read that he was the only one genuinely concerned for the welfare of the church at Philippi. O Father, that I too may be genuinely concerned for my brothers and sisters in Christ, for your Church. Forgive me,  Father, because I have many times seek my own interests. So many times I have said that I am concerned for others, but I soon forget to keep them in my prayers and now I see that it is a clear sign that I am not genuinely concerned for them. Help me to be willing and available to serve your body, starting with my own family, just as Timothy was willing and available as a son with a father to serve the church at Philippi.

Lord, create in my a heart of a servant like the one Epaphroditus had. Just to see how Paul loved him! He was certainly a good brother to him; he was a fellow worker, a fellow soldier, a faithful messenger and a minister to the needs of others, even to the point of risking his own life to serve the Church. Lord, I long to be a good and faithful servant; always willing never nagging, or complaining. Help me have and keep a joyful attitude as I serve you where you have placed me, my home. Help me be a faithful fellow worker to my husband, a fellow soldier, praying without ceasing; help me be ready to minister to the needs of my family at home and at church.

This is my prayer today, in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,

Amen.

>He Made Himself Nothing -P2R Week 7-

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Week 7 :: Philippians 2:5-11

 

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of men.
 And being found in human form,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”
– Philippians 2:5-11

How can you repeat day after day these words without having a lump on your throat and not falling to you knees in prayer… “{He} made himself nothing…”

This is the mystery we just can’t grasp with our limited mind, yet it is a Truth we must believe if we are to be saved, and a model we are commanded to follow: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus…”

John MacArthur says,

“In light of the profound reality of Jesus’ full and uncompromised deity, His incarnation was the most profound possible humiliation. For Him to change in any way or to any degree, even temporarily by the divine decree of His Father, required descent. By definition, to forsake perfection requires taking on some form of imperfection. Yet without forsaking or in any way diminishing His perfect deity or His absolute holiness, in a way that is far beyond human comprehension, the Creator took on the form of the created. The Infinite became finite, the Sinless took sin upon Himself. The very heart of the gospel of redemption is that the Father “made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Although that infinitely marvelous and cardinal gospel truth is impossible to understand, it is necessary to believe.”

He descended to save sinners like me, He came to rescue me when I was running away from Him and did not look for Him. This is where Grace meets us, in our sin not in our self-righteousness!

I keep muttering these words, I meditate on them while cooking and walking. I am commanded to have this same mind, I am commanded to humble myself, to make myself nothing, to be obedient to the point of death.

This doesn’t come easy. I love my flesh, my skin…. isn’t this the way I was taught by the secular media and the modern evangelical churches in which I grew up? 

We don’t work toward having a good self- esteem, that is already there. Naturally we love ourselves more than God. We are never inclined to make ourselves nothing, to descend, to bow, to make ourselves servants.


Think of the moments your husband is sick, or when your children ask you to read them one more story, or when your neighbor needs help… does saying no to yourself comes easily? Not for me. 


The gospel calls us to live dying in our every day walk. It is not something mystic, it is there in your kitchen, in the marriage bed, in the moments that are woven together that we must make ourselves nothing. Yes, this seems like foolishness to the unsaved, but it is the message of the Cross. I must lay down my life, my minutes to God by serving those around me.


MacArthur says,

“It is the attitude of selfless giving oneself and one’s possessions, power, and privileges that should characterize all who belong to Christ. They should be willing to loosen their grip on the blessings they have, which they have solely because of Him. Christians are set apart from the world as children of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Yet they must not clutch those privileges and blessings. Instead, like the Lord, they must hold them loosely and be willing to sacrifice them all for the benefit of others”



and then he says,


“Christians obviously can’t empty themselves to the degree that the Lord emptied Himself, because He started so high and Christians start so low. Believers have infinitely less to empty themselves of. Even what they have is given to them by grace. Believers are obligated to follow the Lord’s example by emptying themselves of everything that would hinder their obedience and service to Him.”



Isn’t the home the perfect place to practice this? Isn’t among our family that we find the best opportunities to practice emptying ourselves so that His name might be exalted?

I am learning; I do not want to let these opportunities pass by …





>Right Motives, Right Marks, Right Means -P2R Week 6-

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>WOW! I just can’t believe we actually finished week 6 of the Partnering to Remember Project.

Philippians 2
Week 6 :: Philippians 2:1-4
2:1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ,
any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit,
any affection and sympathy,
2 complete my joy by being of the same mind,
having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
3 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit,
but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests,
but also to the interests of others.
– Philippians 2:1-4

What a blessing it is to memorize God’s Word! It is a gift, it is a true joy and once you start into this spiritual discipline, you understand why so many  people who have done this as a regular habit encourage others with such a great enthusiasm to start doing it.

These four verses are just full of encouragement for the Church to see what are the motives, marks and means to strive for the unity in the church.

Studying John MacArthur’s commentary has been a blessing and a great help to me; it is easier to memorize a passage when you understand the meaning of each of the key words and how they relate to all its context.

I have learned through these 6 weeks that memorizing the Word of God is not about just memorizing it… It is about letting it change you, sanctify you, cleanse you. It is about growing in our communion with the Lord.

It is in the Scriptures that we hear God speaking to us; how important it is then,  that we keep it in our heart ready to speak to us, to point us to our sin and to our Saviour, our only Hope.

We want to speak with grace, with words that edify and build, but now I understand that it is not about “trying harder” to hold our tongue; it is about filling our heart with the Word that gives Life; for it is from the abundance of the heart that our mouth speak.

May His grace abound…

>On Imperfections, Cracks and the Gospel -P2R week 5-

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“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.” Philippians 1: 27- 30 ESV

I repeat these words several times a day, it’s week 5 of the P2R project; and I just can’t do it fluently. I stop and see my imperfections, the cracks in my own life. I not always live my days, my minutes worthy of the gospel of Christ. The Holy Spirit reminds me of some hidden sins in my heart (some of omission). The light of the Word pierces into those corners of my life where darkness has found a place; God grants me the gift of repentance and darkness is overcome. Sanctification is a gift from God; the Father has not only called us to be His own and justified us; but He is working in us day by day; His Light piercing the darkness in our hearts. This is the Gospel, good news for sinners who repent and believe in Him who on the Cross conquered death. (And here I would add… If you don’t read your Bible, if you don’t expose your soul to the Light, how would you expect to grow in Him?)

What are those words that come next? “…It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him but also suffer for His sake”  Why they can’t be found in a “Book of Promises”?

At the table I tell my children and my Beloved, with a lump on my throat, “I have never suffered for the gospel… I pray, O how I pray, that if such a day comes to me; I will be joyful, and count it as a blessing, as gift granted by God.”

I mutter all the words in chapter one; and I can clearly see that the only way for me, for you, to count every trial, every suffering as a gift from God is to live beyond the time line in which we are bound. We must live with our eyes fixed on Jesus; longing to be with Him…“for that is far better”, far better than anything this world could offer us; far better than anything we could have ever imagined!

Under His Sun and by His grace,

Read my friend Anne’s reflections on her memory project here.
and listen to Aaron recite chapter one here.
Be encouraged, dear friend, you can start today! Read about P2R here.

This post is linked to the photography {word} prompt at Three.

>Prokop (Progress) – P2R Week 3-

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I am very happy to be part of the huge number of saints memorizing Philippians (P2R). I am studying along a commentary on Philippians by MacArthur ; which has proved to be something beneficial for my soul. So just as I did last week, I will post some interesting insights I have gleaned from these verses.

Prokop is the greek word that means “progress; advance“.  Definitely a key word on this week’s memory verses (Philippians 1: 12- 18).

Every trial in the life of the Christian should serve to advance the gospel. “It was the progress (the advance) of the gospel for which Paul lived so passionately” (emphasis mine) It was this way of living through trials that make him write the Epistle of Joy!

“One of the surest measures of a Christian’s spiritual maturity is what it takes to rob him of his Spirit-bestowed joy. Paul’s maturity is evident in the present text as he makes it clear that difficult, unpleasant, painful, even life-threatening circumstances did not rob him of joy but rather caused it to increase.”

Philippians is known as the Epistle for joy, but we know that joy is not always present in the life of the believer; why? MacArhur says,

“The only certain cause for loss of joy in a believer’s life is sin, which corrupts his fellowship with the Lord, who is the source of joy. Such sinful attitudes as dissatisfaction, bitterness, sullenness, doubt, fear, and negativism cause joy to be forfeited. Consequently, the only way to restore lost joy is to repent and return to proper worship of and obedience to God.
Any thing other than sin -no matter how difficult,  painful, or disappointing- need not to take away the believer’s joy.”

This is a time to stop and ask ourselves, how do we react to those hard circumstances in life that we encounter? Paul was in prison, his circumstances were terrible, however, he rejoiced because he knew that he was put there for the defense of the gospel; he knew he was in prison with a  God- glorifying purpose, the advance of the gospel.

I have friends (for example Hollie and Persis) who have gone through very harsh times and have learned to give glory to God in the midst of their circumstances and have fought against their flesh to keep their joy. This humbles me and I learn from them.

“He {Paul} did not ignore or make light of his imprisonment (cf. 1:7,14, 17; Col. 4:3, 18; Philem. 9, 13), but it was incidental to his willing, joyous, and immeasurably privileged status as a bondservant of Jesus Christ (1:1)… Everything in Paul’s life had  importance only to the degree that it affected the progress (the advance) of the gospel.” (Emphasis mine)

So no, we are not to “confess” the opposite of what is happening, of the reality God has brought to our lives; but we must see beyond it!

Now, what is our reaction to the trials our  brothers and sisters in Christ are walking through? Paul says that many brothers became more confident in the Lord by his imprisonment  and spoke more boldly the word without fear (v. 14). To this MacArthur says,

“His strength became their strength, as his example touched them… courage is contagious”

Isn’t this a wonderful example on how all that happens to us serves to advance the gospel if we give God the glory due to His name in all? I am thinking of this, if a Christian complains all through the period of trial he has to go through, then no one around him will be encouraged to walk with confidence before a sovereign God; so next time I walk through trials, I want to be an encouragement to the saints around me, always giving God the honor and speaking boldly the word without fear.

The last quote I want to share now is this:

“Absolutely nothing could steal Paul’s God-given joy. He was expandable; the gospel was not. His own privacy and freedom were incidental, and he cared nothing for personal recognition or credit. Neither the painful chains of Rome nor the even more painful criticism of fellow Christians could keep him from rejoicing, because Christ was being proclaimed and His Church was growing and maturing”

Today I am grateful for the Epistle to the Philippians. There is so much to learn.. !

May we be willing to live passionately to advance the gospel of Christ through all the circumstances we walk through.

Some friends Memorizing Philippians share their thoughts (I encourage you to visit them):

Read my friend’s Anne’s reflections here.
Aaron  @Blogging Theologically shares his thoughts  here. 
Leslie Wiggins’ reflections are here

What have you learned through this week’s verses? Any helpful tips? Any insights you want to share? 

Join the conversation!

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