Last night, our home church met for prayer. Listening to the
heart-cry of God’s people always stirs up my shepherdly concern to watch over
people’s souls,[1]
so, this morning God addressed this by immediately telling me, “do not be anxious about anything.”[2]
Whether I consider my empathy for those who walk with me in the faith, or what
happens to me when I consider the difficulties we face as we grow up in Christ,
the response of God is always the same: no anxiety!
This means that everything our church prayed about, and all
the needs expressed, no matter how anything made us feel, no matter how bad
this old world looks, all fit into the category of, “do not be anxious about ANYTHING.” Okay, enough said.
What stood out next was that there are two things we are to
let be “known” to others. On one side, the thing we are to let be known to
people is our reasonableness (“Let your
reasonableness be known to everyone”).[3] On
the other side, the things we are to let be known to God is our comprehensive
praying (“let your requests be made known
to God”).[4]
So, prayer to God, and reasonableness to everyone else; at the same time. Got
it.
From this I seemed to take a step back and discover, for the
first time in my life, that the promise of, “and
the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and
your minds in Christ Jesus,”[5]
completes this whole paragraph, not just the last statement. In other words,
this isn’t merely telling us that if we pray about everything as instructed, we
will feel the peace of God.
What I now see, and this as a summary of the whole book of
Philippians, is that the thing God is really saying is much bigger than peace
through prayer. Rather, when a church rejoices in the Lord ALWAYS, and lets our
reasonableness be known to EVERYONE, and is not anxious about ANYTHING, but by
prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, in all kinds of requests, makes our
hearts know to God in EVERYTHING, then we will experience the peace of God
guarding our hearts and our minds.
In other words, when our search for joy centers in Jesus Christ,
instead of trying to get everyone around us to meet our need for joy, we become
so satisfied in, “the joy of the Lord is
your strength,”[6]
that we can show our reasonableness to everyone because we don’t need them to
do anything for us.
At the same time, because we are rejoicing in the Lord
always, we do not handle life’s problems with anxiety (since the Lord in whom
we are rejoicing is trustworthy to meet our needs), but we face everything with
prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, and requests, to the one person who can
complete our joy no matter what we are going through.[7]
It is in this church fellowship of rejoicing in the Lord
always, showing reasonableness to everyone, being anxious for nothing, praying
about everything, that we all experience the peace of God together. As that
peace guards our hearts and our minds, we are protected from the attacks of the
world, the flesh, and the devil in trying to “steal and kill and destroy.”[8]
This makes it so we are able to continue rejoicing in the Lord always, continue
making our reasonableness known to everyone, continue rejecting anxiety as our
modus operandi, and continue praying about everything with glad, sincere, and
thankful hearts.
This is not a legalistic model to follow in order to force
the hand of God to move in our favor. This is the way the people of God band
together to work out our salvation with fear and trembling because we know that
God is working these very things into us, both to will to do them, and to work
to do them.[9]
He wants our joy, and so he is working to that end. He wants us to pass on to
others the reasonableness we have experienced from him. He wants us to know
what it feels like to never be anxious (since he is quite well acquainted with
this himself). And, it is his good pleasure that we would fellowship with him
in prayer, and supplication, and thanksgiving, presenting every request to him
in faith.
When we see that all of this is the work of God in us, we
can welcome the transformation into the image of Jesus Christ, “from one degree of glory to another,”[10]
with the wondering hearts of little children who are slowly growing up to be
like our firstborn brother, Jesus Christ our Lord.[11]
Which, of course, turns us right back to rejoicing in the
Lord always. And so we shall, no matter how much thankful praying it takes to
get there, and stay there!
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
Hebrews 13:17
[2]
Philippians 4:6
[3]
Philippians 4:5
[4]
Philippians 4:6
[5]
Philippians 4:7
[6]
Nehemiah 8:10
[7]
John 15:11, and I John 1:4, speak of the fullness and completion of joy that
God desires for his children.
[8]
John 10:10
[9]
Philippians 2:12-13
[10]
II Corinthians 3:18
[11]
Romans 8:28-30 tells us of God’s work to have a brotherhood of children, of
whom Jesus is the firstborn.
No comments:
Post a Comment