Changed by Being Together (09-Sept)

Verses of the Day:

Phil 2:12-13 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Devotional Thoughts

When we first got married, there were things that I just didn’t like doing. like watching a good period drama, Pride and Prejudice type movie. But, through the years, because they are things my wife enjoys, I have come to enjoy them also. The longer we are married, the more we think alike, and the more our desires are similar.

Yesterday we looked at Phil 2:5, “Let this mind be in you…” Paul challenged us to begin thinking like Jesus. Now, here in Phil 2:13 we learn that as we “work out” our salvation in this way, and begin thinking like Jesus, He will work in us to give us the desire to do what He wants. That’s quite remarkable. What would it be like to think like Jesus? How would you like for God to change your desires to no longer pursue your own selfish desires, but to live for Him? Well, that’s exactly what God is saying in these verses. So, the big question is how is He going to do that?

Charles Price said, “When God gets to work in your life, suddenly things that you didn’t have any interest in before, you suddenly begin to have an appetite for, a hunger for. You no longer do things out of selfish ambition and vanity, but you begin to consider others as better than yourselves and you start looking after their interests instead of your own. (Phil 2:3-4)

John 13:35. “By this”, said Jesus, “shall all men know that you are my disciples that you love one another.” Francis Schaeffer has said that Jesus Christ gave the world the right to judge the validity of anybody’s claim to be a Christian, not by their doctrine. But by their love. You can dot your doctrinal “i”‘s and you can cross your doctrinal “T””s and it means nothing at all to God, unless you are motivated to action by His love!

Ian Thomas said, “It’s not the nature of what we do that determines the spirituality of any action, but the ORIGIN of what we do!” There was never a moment in Jesus’ life, there was never anything He did, never anything He said, never any step He took, which did not spring from divine origin.”

John 14:10 “…the Father who dwells in me does the works.” The whole activity of Jesus on earth as man was the Father’s activity in the Son, through the Holy Spirit, as Jesus was simply available to the Father.

Our spirituality is simply our availability to God for His divine activity, and the form of the activity is irrelevant. If it pleases you, always and only, to do what pleases God… you can do as you please!

Charles Price went on to say, “God’s promises are also God’s commands, they are the same things. For instance, love is a promise. The fruit of the spirit is love, that’s a promise. It’s the fruit of the spirit. You allow the spirit to fill your life and you begin to love. But at the same time, Jesus said, a new command I give you, love your neighbour as yourself. That’s a command.”

And as we work out our salvation by thinking like Jesus did, and considering the interests of others as more important than ours, we will be loving them as Jesus did. I love what 1 John 4:12 said, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” God works in us to love, because of His great love for us. (1 John 4:19) But, then that love overflows, it works itself out, because we are becoming more like Jesus.

As we spend time with Jesus, and spent time beholding him and getting to know him, 2 Cor 3:18 tells us, that He, “makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.”

Just like in my marriage, because we have spent so much time together, our desires have become similar, the way we think is similar. I have even heard of couples beginning to look more and more similar as they age. The same is true with God. The more time we spend with Him, the more He will be working in us what He is like. And as we become more like Him, then we will desire the same things he does, and we will have the desire to work it out, to carry it out, to do what pleases Him.

May the testimony of our lives be the same as those of Jesus disciples, “The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13)