Think on these things...

I know this is from a few weeks ago, but I was without internet access & unable to post.



We can get so caught up in our thoughts & emotions, allowing them to take us down a non productive path & distract us from the work we should be doing. This creates an opportunity for the devil to fill our minds with lies & create confusion. For many years my aunt has started her day by quoting this verse & has always encouraged me to do the same. Back in January I finally decided to give it a try & focus on the words true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, & commendable. I began to look for the things in my life that represented these words & meditate upon God's goodness. Once I took the time to think on these things, I discovered that I didn't want to spoil these thoughts with earthly trash. I still have a long way to go, but this verse is a great reminder for us to focus our minds on what is good & pure.

Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

The following verse encourages us to practice these things, meaning they don't just happen & that you can improve! It is our responsibility to figure out what to practice; to go back through the scriptures to find what they learned, received, heard, & saw.

Philippians 4:9 What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Peace? Yes, please

There is so much great stuff in Philippians 4, but I think v6-7 stand out to me the most where it tells us how to get the peace of God.

In this crazy world we live in where everything moves so fast and everyone is so busy, the peace of God is definitely something I want to have. And as with many things in the Bible, the answer is quite simple (although not always easy to put into practice):

Don't worry, just pray.

If we give our concerns to God and trust that He will take care of them, His peace will guard our hearts and minds. That sounds good to me! But the difficult part is trusting God enough to let go of whatever you're anxious about.

Of course this doesn't mean everything will go your way, but if we trust that God's way is much better than our way (Is 55:8-9) we can have God's peace with whatever is happening around us.

Rubbish

We all have lots off stuff in this life, physical things as well as accomplishments we've worked towards with school, work, etc. Paul says that all he had accomplished in his former life was rubbish compared to Christ 3:8. We need to have that same attitude where worldly things aren't what is important to us.

While we should definitely thank God for our blessings, we need to realize that everything we do here is temporary. Our focus should be on the eternal. Reading this brings a lot of perspective.

Things I'm concerned about don't seem so important when I weigh them against Christ. We need to work hard at everything we do in this life, but can't lose site of the ultimate goal of heaven.