Don’t Look at It

Unless we’re in deep pain, we typically don’t want to die.

We fight death. Avoid it. Don’t want to look it in the eye.

But the apostle Paul took a different approach. Can we?

Memorize This Week

20 as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.
Philippians 1:20

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Bigger Than Life

Paul’s goal wasn’t to merely stay alive. His goal was to honor Christ. If that meant dying, so be it. If that meant living longer, bring it on.

We need stronger goals, too. Just aiming to keep our lungs breathing and our hearts pumping doesn’t lead to a meaningful life. We need purpose. Purpose to live. Purpose to die.

Could that purpose be one and the same?

If honoring Christ was a goal bigger than life or death for Paul, is it big enough for us, too?

[Scheduling note: Next week is our planned one-week break from memorizing anything new, as we prepare our hearts for Easter. We’ll return with our Philippians memory verses on April 15.]

Truth Is Truth

Sometimes we don’t want to believe a message if we don’t like the messenger.

But truth is truth, no matter who tells it.

Memorize This Week

18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice,
19 for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance,
Philippians 1:18-19

[download the verse image]

What Then?

The apostle Paul was telling the Philippians that some were preaching the gospel with pure motives, with love. But others were preaching it because they were envious and selfish.

But so what?

Or as Paul put it, “What then?” He still rejoiced.

As long as the content was true, Paul was satisfied that the good news was spreading. (Now if the content was bad? That’s another story. See Galatians 1:6-9).

Paul wasn’t shooting the messenger. Neither should we.

Wherever the truth comes from, listen to it. God dispels His wisdom from a variety of sources, some of which don’t seem logical to us.

But if Jesus is being preached? Be like Paul. Don’t shoot the messenger.

But Why?

You say you’re a Christian.

You go to church. You pray before meals. You might even say the name of Jesus out loud now and again.

But why do you do it?

Memorize This Week

16 The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.
17 The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.
Philippians 1:16-17

[download the verse image]

Unclean Motives

The apostle Paul was doing a motive check.

He was in prison for spreading Christ’s message of grace and love and Lordship. He had seen Jesus. He believed what he was preaching. He knew it to be true.

But other people? Not so much. Some were just being copycats. They saw Paul doing it, and they were competitive. They saw him as a rival so they began preaching it, too.

Yet others’ motives were clean. They, too, had met love. And from that foundation, they were spreading the news.

Check YOUR Motives

Why do we do it?

• Are we followers because our parents were?
• Is it because Christianity is the socially-acceptable religion among our circle of friends?
• Are we hoping to trade up for more blessings from God?

Let’s do a motive check on ourselves this week. Let’s ask ourselves why we do what we do, why we believe what we say we believe.

Then once we find our answers, let’s embrace God’s grace anew. His grace is big enough to purify our intentions and give us a fresh start.

Not only did others hear, the believers grew more sure of their faith.

This can be a result of hardships.

Memorize This Week

14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
15 Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will.
verse”
Philippians 1:14-15

[click to download the verse image]

Encourage Others

Strengthening others’ faith was part of the apostle Paul’s testimony. As a result of his imprisonment, others were freed. Free to speak the word with boldness. They were confident that Jesus would be enough for them, too.

Can our hardships have similar results? When difficulties intersect our lives, can others be strengthened? How did that happen with Paul?

• Paul didn’t cave when he was wrongly accused.
• He didn’t give in to bitterness.
• He didn’t turn his back on God.

Paul just faithfully stayed true to his message. About righteousness through Jesus. About flourishing in love. About thanking God in all things.

That’s a testimony we can copy. That’s how we, too, can give courage to others.

When the Plan Changes

I thought we were going to work in Beauregard on Thursday. Devastating tornadoes wiped out a community there in Alabama four days earlier. Our group was prepared to volunteer all weekend, cutting trees, clearing yards, and praying with the hurting.

But we ended up in Columbus, Georgia, instead.

What do we do when God changes the plan?

Is This the Plan?

Even though Paul had been forewarned he would stand before Caesar (Acts 27:24), he also knew he was to open the eyes of unbelievers to see the light of Jesus (Acts 26:16-18).

So when he found himself shackled in Rome, he might have wondered: Is this really the plan?

We often ask ourselves that. And we ask God as well.

• Is this what You meant to happen?
• How can I offer Your hope to others when I am ______ (out of a job/getting a divorce/chronically depressed/etc.)?
• Has something gone wrong?

But like Paul, we, too, can rest in God’s good plans. Even when His plans are the opposite of our plans.

Memorize This Week

12 I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel,
13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.
Philippians 1:12-13

[click to download the verse image]

Can’t Stop This

Paul saw the beauty in God’s plan of opposites. Instead of the gospel news being shut down because Paul was imprisoned, it was growing instead.

That’s the way God works. He opens up better paths ahead of us. He advances the way (see Philippians 1:12, “advance” as in cutting the way for an army to advance). God prepared the way for Paul even in prison.

As His children, He also prepares paths for us. Regardless of how circumstances, relationships, or our own bodies may imprison us, God can use each of us in this very situation in this very time to spread words of hope, forgiveness, and grace.

Paul was urging the Philippians to believe this (“I want you to know“). We can urge each other to believe it, too.

Our time volunteering in Columbus, Georgia, proved to be a huge blessing after all, not only to the families there who had tremendous tornado damage, but also to our own group doing the work.

• Not only did we pray for the survivors, they also prayed for us.
• Not only did we meet their needs, they also met ours.
• Not only were we a light to them, they were a light to us.

No one can accurately predict or stop what God has planned. And what God has planned is always for His glory and for our good.

Even when it seems the opposite.

When have you seen God’s plan turn out better than your own plan? Please share in the comments.

Why do you want love to grow bigger?

So you can bear more fruit. So God will be honored.

Memorize This Week

10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,
11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Philippians 1:10-11

[click to download the verse image]

Make the Best Choice

Sometimes we don’t know the right thing to do. We have so many choices on how to spend our time, our money, our energy.

We need discernment.

When Paul prayed for his fellow believers in Christ in Philippi, he prayed with purpose. He wanted their love to abound more and more in discernment (Philippians 1:9).

He wanted their love to lead them to make good choices (Philippians 1:10). To keep them pure.

When love fulfills its purpose, it blooms. It meets the needs of others and it brings praise to God (Philippians 1:11).

As you meditate on and memorize Philippians 1:10-11 this week, ask God to help your love grow in the best direction, too.

Who do you miss?

Who are you longing for today?

In our memory verses this week, Philippians 1:8-9, we learn that the apostle Paul yearned for the believers in the city of Philippi. A lot.

As a result, he prayed for them.

Memorize This Week

“For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.
And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment.”
Philippians 1:8-9

[click to download the verse image]

What to Pray

Do we pray for those we miss? What do we pray?

Paul prayed this for his friends:

• For their love to overflow
• For their love to grounded in truth
• For their love to be perceptive

Paul understood that their greatest need—also our greatest need—is for more love. To love more, and to love better, is a gift that blesses our friends and everyone around them. Love blesses both the giver and the receiver. It fulfills the greatest commandment (love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, Matthew 22:37-38). It fulfills the second greatest command (love your neighbor as yourself, Matthew 22:39).

As you pray for those around you this week and those you wish were around you, pray for their love to increase, too. It’s how you hold them in your heart and partake with them in grace (Philippians 1:7).

God is our witness.

None of us have to walk alone. God’s good news passes around from you to me, and from me to you.

Imprisoned

One of my lifelong friends is in ICU. He’s been there for weeks. Complications from a heart surgery has him tethered to a hospital bed by tubes and lines and machines.

His body is imprisoned there. His wife’s heart is captive there, too. None of us knows the outcome yet.

How does the good news help them now? Where’s the grace?

Memorize This Week

“It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.”
Philippians 1:7

[click to download the verse image]

Grace Friends

Hardships can blackmail our joy. Impediments—whether physical, emotional, or mental—can try to freeze our blessings. Pains can threaten to isolate us from fellow believers when we need them most.

Except . . .

God doesn’t leave us alone. While He is always with us Himself, He also created human companionship for us. It’s one of the Father’s gifts to His kids—each other.

Whether in good times or bad, we don’t walk alone. The apostle Paul experienced that firsthand. Even while he was physically in prison, he wrote to his companions in Philippi of joy and peace and grace. Not only had they physically helped him in times past, but even the memories about them were helping him in the present.

When times get rough, we dig up the good news for each other again and again. We find grace. We share the grace we discover. And we accept the grace that others give to us.

We need other people in our lives, and other people need us in theirs.

When we partake of grace together, we hold each other in our hearts. You are in mine; I am in yours. We all are in God’s.

We get fresh glimpses of God’s goodness when we can see Him through the eyes of each other.

My friend’s physical outcome remains shaky. Every morning we’re encouraged to discover he’s still with us.

But drawing on last week’s memory verse (Philippians 1:6), I am sure of this: whether here on earth or there in heaven, God will complete the good work He’s begun in my friend. And in his many friends as they hold him in their hearts. We’re in it together. We are grace friends.

It is right for us to feel this way.

It’s the dead of winter where many of us live. Trees are bare. Flowers are gone. Growth has gone underground.

Sometimes it feels like winter in our spiritual lives as well.

Memorize This Week

5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 1:5-6

[click here to download the verse image]

Spiritual Winter

In winters, we don’t see the fruit. Our work never feels finished. Growth seems underground.

We lack confidence that our purpose is being fulfilled. And we can’t imagine anyone else believing it about us either.

But in one of our memory verses this week, we hear otherwise.

In Paul’s letter to the believers in Philippi, he writes a striking statement, meant for them, but also applicable to us:

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
Philippians 1:6

While we may debate exactly what he means by “the day of Jesus Christ,” we can likely agree on this: When God begins a work, He finishes it.

God Finishes What He Starts

In each of our lives, God has begun a work. A good work.

And the work involves more than we know. We see our unfinished projects, goals, and assignments. But the underlying work also includes our transformation, our love for others, and our love for God.

Even when we don’t see progress above ground, God is busy underground. He not only has the will to make it happen, He has the power to do it.

Don’t discount the process just because you can’t yet see the results.

That should leave us with confidence. With hope. With faith.

Not haughty about our own ability to finish, but secure in the One who WILL bring it to completion.

We can count on it. Because we can count on Him.

Think back to a hard time in your life. What do you remember? Who do you remember?

Can you thank God for the people who stood by you?

Memorize This Week

3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,
4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy.
Philippians 1:3-4

[click here to download the verse image]

What Do You Remember?

Sometimes we forget the good stuff when it’s surrounded by bad. What we remember is the pain, the betrayal, the heartache.

Paul could have done the same. When Paul and Silas had been in Philippi, this happened to them:

• They were dragged through the streets by slave owners (Acts 16:19).
• They were brought before rulers and judges.
• They were attacked by the crowd, had their clothes torn off, and publicly beaten (Acts 16:22-24).

And after all that, they were thrown into prison with their feet fastened in stocks.

Who would want to remember that? And who could forget?

Yet when Paul was reflecting back to his time in Philippi, he says in this week’s memory verses, he was remembering the Philippian saints there with joy.

Thank God for the Memory

We sometimes only remember the bad parts of past situations. We don’t see anything to be thankful for.

But if we follow the example of Paul this week, we can do this:

Set an intention to remember the good things, the people who were kind to us, and thank not only them, but also thank GOD for them.

Even if we’re in hard circumstances again. (Remember Paul was again a prisoner as he was writing Philippians).

And what happens when we do thank God for those memories?

It will bring us joy. Just like Paul.

How do you introduce yourself when you meet someone new?

This week we’ll look at how Paul introduced himself, and how we can apply that to our own lives as we memorize Philippians 1:1-2.

Memorize This Week

1 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Philippians 1:1-2

Hello to You

Welcome to Section 1 of the 4 sections (and all 30 verses) we’re memorizing in Philippians 1.

Do you ever send a text to someone who doesn’t have you in their contacts? How do you introduce yourself so they’ll know you’re a real person and not a spammer?

Usually I say something like this:

“Hey, this is Lisa. We met last Tuesday at …”

In the New Testament, we have 13 recorded letters that Paul sent to various individuals and gatherings of believers. How did Paul introduce himself each time?

Of the 13 letters, he mentioned he was an apostle 8 times. Two times he didn’t mention a title at all. One time he said he was a prisoner for Jesus Christ.

And two times, including Philippians and Romans, he said he was a servant of Christ Jesus.

To get technical, he actually used the Greek word doulos (G1401), which literally means slave or bondman. It comes from deo (G1210) which means to bind, to fasten with chains.

Be a Servant, Too

When we think of doulas today, we think of women who provide support to a mother giving birth.

But however you define it, this term implies a denial of one’s own needs to better serve another.

Paul sets the standard high from verse 1 onward.

As you read or memorize Philippians 1:1-2 this week, think about the “services” you provide. To Jesus. To others in the name of Jesus.

As you give yourself away through words and deeds, also breathe out grace to others. Bless them with peace. Paul did. These are gifts we’re given from God, not to keep to ourselves, but to pass around.

And the next time someone gets a text or call or message from you, may your greeting and service be as welcome as your intention in giving it.

Want more on Paul’s greetings? Read here.

• What’s In A Greeting? The Epistles of Paul

If you want to sign up to memorize Philippians 1, get the details here. It’s not too late.

• Sign Up Now – Memorize Philippians 1

If you want to walk through Philippians 1 with us, meditating and memorizing these precious truths about our standing in Christ, you still have time to sign up!

Register here. [UPDATE: Registration closed.] You’ll receive a weekly email and links to download a free packet of resources.

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Find out more about it here.

We’re excited to begin this Monday, January 28. Thanks to all who have already signed up!