Author: Bryan Richardson

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 4:10-23 (day three)

^“I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

Who did God make when he made you? Let’s review Jesus’s invitations to human beings: “Come to me on the water;” “You give them something to eat;” “Strengthen your brothers;” “Cast out demons;” “Go reveal the news of my resurrection;” “You’ll do greater things than I’m doing.” That’s an awful lot of astounding capacity for entities who are “only human.” But you’re not “only human,” if by that you mean flawed and ill-suited for life in the universe. The “only” adjective actually insults God’s handwork. Patterns of body, mind, and spirit that fall short of the mark of God’s vision for you have taken up residence in your soul. But God made you with capabilities that would shock you. Paul learned from the Lord how to realize those capabilities. And so can you.

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 4:1-9 (day three)

“Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near.”

There are parts of you that never forget the emotional wounds you’ve sustained. They fight to protect you from further pain. Those parts – the skeptic, the critic, the self-medicator, or the one who just wants to disappear – they all work to protect you, but they end up causing more harm than good. Paul knew this reality in his own life (see Romans 7). Rather than berating these troublesome parts, or trying to destroy them, he simply says, “The real you that God made isn’t reactive, but courageous, calm, confident. The more you open your eyes to the Lord’s availability – his nearness to you – the more he will teach you who he’s made you to be: one who can bring healing to your inner wounds and comfort to those around you.”

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 3:17-21 (day three)

“Our citizenship is in heaven.”

Will this earth and the entire created order one day be crumpled up, swept away, destroyed, annihilated? Will it one day have outlived its usefulness and no longer possess any value to any living creature? Setting aside for a moment the spectacle of God’s obliterating the very heavens that the Bible says pour forth speech praising the Creator night and day, there remain the words of Jesus himself, who speaks of the renewal of all things. The “new heaven and new earth” will be this heaven and this earth, brought to their full flower. The Bible closes with the proclamation of heaven’s uniting with this renewed earth where God will have his address. Therefore, with great joy, we can know that those whose citizenship is in heaven are those who are most at home on this earth.

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 3:12-16 (day three)

“If in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that to you as well.”

Jesus’s table is always too big for some people’s liking. How about you? Who’s not going to want you around that feast? Think about it long enough, and it’ll break your heart. With Jesus, everybody’s invited, and he notices who’s not there. He made that clear in the parables he told. You’ll think one way, I’ll think another, and pretty soon we’re trying to save seats for our favorites. We’ll make all kinds of logical defenses for our attitudes, but the one attitude that will rescue the celebration is that of Christ himself. Your place around his table is no less an act of mercy towards you than it is towards anybody else. When you and I start thinking like that, we’ll need a bigger table.

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 3:1-11 (day three)

“…if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Something about our modern thinking tells us we’ve got to have everything spelled out, turn-key, elevator-pitch ready, and mystery-free. Tell that to Job, who played by the rules and got slammed, or to Jeremiah, who wished he’d never been born, or to Jesus himself, who said, “I have no idea” when faced with questions about the timing of the last day of history. Paul put the exclamation point on those things the Lord taught him: “Jesus came into the world to save sinners”; “I know whom I’ve believed”; “Christ has indeed been raised, a preview of what is to come for those who die.” With other things, there was room for the term “somehow.” Knowledge isn’t the gateway to faith. It’s the other way around.

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 2:19-30 (day three)

For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare.vs. 20

“…so that I also may be encouraged when I learn of your condition.”

At this point, Paul just straight up says, “I need some encouragement.” He tells the Philippians that he’s sending Timothy to them to do encouragement reconnaissance. Vulnerability before others long ago ceased to frighten Paul. He couldn’t manufacture his own encouragement. If he could, the existence of others would for him be superfluous. But others did matter. They could hurt him, and did, as he makes clear elsewhere. His energy was needed for the tasks before him, and he could not afford to spare the energy it takes to project an image of the self-contained, savvy spokesman for the Savior. The sign on his life reads, “Do resuscitate.”

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 2:12-18 (day three)

“Even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.”

As time went on, Paul kept discovering that the gospel was always better than he had previously thought. He continually updated his joy with each realization. A few years earlier, Paul wrote to the church at Rome that “[nothing] will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Now, it had become clear to Paul that that’s not all. The Lord has even more in store for those who count on him. Not only will nothing separate them from God, but nothing will separate them from each other.

Re:Verse passage – Philippians 2:5-11 (day three)

“[Christ] did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.”

Paul could have demanded that Philemon free the enslaved Onesimus. He could have leveraged his formidable political clout to eradicate his opposition in the church at Corinth. He could have availed himself of the perfect sign-from-heaven opportunity the earthquake afforded him to bolt from jail under cover of chaos and darkness. He could have done all those things, but he did none of them. In the face of enticement to wield power over others, he refused. He had been, remember, a pupil of Jesus himself, who taught him the gospel in all its facets. He learned directly from the leper-touching, foot-washing, silent-before-Pilate Savior that life disintegrates when grasped, clutched, or forced. Instead, eternal life consists in inviting, asking, listening. To live eternally is to live with others, not over them.