Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 30th, 2007 No Comments »
Philippians 3:20-4:1 12/16/07
In this passage Paul is making a stark contrast with the sort of persons he mentioned in the previous two verses. In verses 18-19 Paul warned about those who were enemies of the cross of Christ. These people set their mind on earthly things and their end is destruction. In contrast to them, Paul says, “our citizenship is in heaven.” Is your citizenship in heaven this morning? It would perhaps be easy to say yes to this question, but how are we to know where a person’s true citizenship is? To know where your citizenship truly is, you must consider where your mind dwells. In other words, is your mind set on earthly things or heavenly things? Do you live for this world or the next? If you live for this world only you aren’t going to heaven in the next. Your end is destruction. You don’t love and worship the true God. Your god is your sinful desires.
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Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 30th, 2007 No Comments »
Deuteronomy 8
Remembering is the key to thanksgiving and forgetfulness is the source of ingratitude. How good is your memory? If you are an old guy like me, you find it more and more difficult to remember things. But here in our passage, God commands His people to remember! There is no excuse not to remember God and all His blessings! Yet all of us, young or old, are prone to forget God. This is a very dangerous thing to do. Scripture tells us in Romans chapter one that those who forget God will stop being thankful. Those who stop being thankful become foolish and their hearts are darkened. Those who become foolish God gives over to uncleanness and vile passions. Those whom God gives over to uncleanness will be punished with God’s righteous judgment. What an awful progression! It all starts with forgetfulness.
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Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 16th, 2007 No Comments »
Philippians 3:15-19 12/09/07
Spiritual maturity is not a destination, it is a journey. Where are you right now in your spiritual journey? Are you growing in spiritual maturity? Perhaps you think you’ve arrived and are already mature. Or you could be still immature in your walk with God. You might have been a Christian for many years now, but you haven’t really changed much. On the other hand, you might feel that you haven’t changed much when others can see tremendous progress toward maturity. In verse 15 Paul says, “Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind.” He had just finished admitting that he had not obtained perfection – he had not yet arrived, spiritually. So he said, “I press on…I reach forward to those things which are ahead… I press toward the goal and the prize.”
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Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 16th, 2007 No Comments »
Philippians 3:12-14 12/02/07
In verse 12 Paul made an admission – a confession of sorts. He said, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected.” Now of course as a believer, Paul stood accepted by God in the perfect righteousness of Christ. He was not denying the perfection of what he was in Christ by virtue of what Christ had done. Yet he did not believe in sinless perfection in this life. Paul is saying here that though he was in Christ and accepted by God because of His righteousness, he had an obligation and a desire to live a life in actual practice that pleases God. And the first step in seeking to please God is to admit that you have not arrived. While, on the one hand it is easy for some to become discouraged because of failure in the Christian life, on the other hand it is easy for some to become complacent because of past success in the Christian life.
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Posted in Uncategorized on Dec 16th, 2007 No Comments »
Knowing Christ
Philippians 3:10-11 11/25/07
Do you have a hunger to know God? Man was created to know God and fellowship with Him. So why don’t people hunger after God? One reason people aren’t hungry to know God is because they are so full of themselves and full of the world that there is no room for anything else. The average person is quite satisfied with himself and with his life as it is. Oh sure, it could be better – as in having more money, more things, or more fun. But people don’t seek after God because they are content with their lives apart from God. They don’t see God as adding anything to their lives, and even think that He might take away some things if they got too close to Him. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin said that “We cannot seriously aspire to God before we begin to become displeased with ourselves. Each of us must, then, be so stung by the consciousness of his own unhappiness as to attain at least some knowledge of God.”
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