Phil 4 Bless God!

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

If the e-mail text you receive is encrypted at all, just scroll down to the end of all of the text and click on Lena’s Journalin’ , which will take you directly to the web-page where you will be able to read the text quite clearly in it’s purposed form.

Philippians 4
1 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters,[a] stay true to the Lord. I love you and long to see you, dear friends, for you are my joy and the crown I receive for my work.
!
Words of Encouragement
2 Now I appeal to Euodia and Syntyche. Please, because you belong to the Lord, settle your disagreement. 3 And I ask you, my true partner,[b] to help these two women, for they worked hard with me in telling others the Good News. They worked along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are written in the Book of Life.
4 Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! 5 Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.
6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. 9 Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.
Paul’s Thanks for Their Gifts
10 How I praise the Lord that you are concerned about me again. I know you have always been concerned for me, but you didn’t have the chance to help me. 11 Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. 13 For I can do everything through Christ,[c] who gives me strength. 14 Even so, you have done well to share with me in my present difficulty.
15 As you know, you Philippians were the only ones who gave me financial help when I first brought you the Good News and then traveled on from Macedonia. No other church did this. 16 Even when I was in Thessalonica you sent help more than once. 17 I don’t say this because I want a gift from you. Rather, I want you to receive a reward for your kindness.
18 At the moment I have all I need—and more! I am generously supplied with the gifts you sent me with Epaphroditus. They are a sweet-smelling sacrifice that is acceptable and pleasing to God. 19 And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.
20 Now all glory to God our Father forever and ever! Amen.
Paul’s Final Greetings
21 Give my greetings to each of God’s holy people—all who belong to Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me send you their greetings. 22 And all the rest of God’s people send you greetings, too, especially those in Caesar’s household.
23 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
Footnotes:
a. Philippians 4:1 Greek brothers; also in 4:8.
b. Philippians 4:3 Or loyal Syzygus.
c. Philippians 4:13 Greek through the one.

~ Lena’s Journalin’~
“Stay true” means, persevere, stay steadfast, don’t move off of- your faith in the Lord. It further means to keep intact, as in being a guard over the shepherding of a flock. To weigh for value, and then guard the value of; to be secured, and make secure.
I am on a co-mission along with our Lord Jesus to redefine our salvation experiences with Him in this day. What matters most in life is the end of a thing, more so than the beginning of it. It matters more whether we end a race, than that we ever started. In fact the finish is the reality of the start. In Christianity and in our faith-walk, ending is what counts. So if we start, we must stay, we must endure in order to end. Those who stay all the way, win the prize. Those who start and stop do not get anything at all, barely even the satisfaction of saying I began.
Again think of your walk with God as a human relationship. If you met someone, found out their name, and even phone number, met them as a friend of a friend and you “knew” of them from others telling you about them, but you never called them and befriended them personally by spending any mount of time in their company, would you really be able to say you know them? You could say I met them or I know their name or I have some of the same friends, but you could not rightly say I KNOW them, correct?
This is the way with our Christianity. This is why when Jesus returns He’ll say to some, “I do not KNOW you”. You knew of Me, had heard of Me, maybe made Me a few promises, but we were not in relationship. God is interested in relationship. Man was made by God to reciprocate relationship. If he’s not, that is his choice. God has given all of the necessary offers. He says if we draw near, so does He.
He sent His Son to die and initiate the invitation for relationship. If a person acknowledges that work, but never shows up for dinner, never converses, never meets the family, and does not or will not begin to love who and how God loves, and also never asks what they can do to respond to what was done for them as a part of this awesome God-family, but rather resists even talking about fellowship with who God loves; and if that person does not know Jesus enough to want to invite others to do the same, how can they say they are His? They can’t. In life they disassociated themselves form the acceptance of the invitation, they did not RSVP to God. It would be a lie in God’s face to say, “I knew You”. We can’t say, “Lord, let me live where you live”, when I was never a part of His family here. I was uninterested or too busy or didn’t want to be pushed. I made my desire known to God, I told Him I wanted no part of Him by my day to day action and lack of response to His repeated invitations.
To have said a one time prayer acknowledging that Jesus died on a cross and that He forgave us of our sins is pretty limited. We may have heard of Him and been invited to get to know Him better by people who do know Him, and we may be good friends with people who do spend time with Him, but we have to know Him one on one, if we never personally spend any time getting to know Jesus and God our Father and the Holy Spirit as persons, then we cannot say we know God. This is why Paul is saying, go further, keep moving, continue growing, learning and keeping on this lifelong trek of faith! When the enemy comes to lie and steal your faith away stand firm and DO NOT allow Him to take what God gave you, it is now yours to guard and keep as a gatekeeper of a city gate. What’s inside is worth fighting for the rest of your days!
Disagreement is the opposing force and the enemy of agreement. The enemy of God is rebellion. Rebellion is independent of God and lives without ever being told what or how to do anything. Disagreement is an enemy. Agreement is where power begins. Thus is the reason it is SO hard to agree with anyone at anytime! Can you see that? There is a power of God that ignites in agreement. If we disagree there’s no power ignited in us. So PLEASE settle the disagreement. It is the enemy’s tool against the Christ in you to take you out of faith to take others around you out of faith and to cause an enemy to be empowered by rebellion and sin.
Rejoice. That’s a choice.
Fix your thoughts. That takes a decision, a discipline.
When this speaks of receiving strength from Christ for all things, it is speaking of all things in Christ. Such as Loving, and being kind, not giving up faith, enduring hardship, agreeing, etc. It is about having all we need to do His work with a successful witness about us. It’s not about making God our servant, where He gives us whatever we need to do whatever we’ve decided we need to do in life.
God Bless America, and America Bless God.
One is elementary, the other is growth exemplified. It is the season for maturity, time to bless God in thought and action. Let’s get a hold of His word and the promises therein to bless Him and serve Him and do His will in the earth

Daily Thought to Ponder -
“Oh Give Thanks to the Lord for He is Good!”