4SpiritualSecrets

“…have a reputation for gentleness…”
(Philippians 4:5)

When Paul writes of gentleness, he does not mean weakness, or milquetoast gentleness. The Greek word for gentleness here is actually the word meekness. Meekness is not weakness. Biblical meekness is closer in meaning to tameness. When a powerful stallion is broken, finally takes the bit, and yields to the control of the bridle and the rider, it is not weak. That powerful animal could be described as “strength under control.” That is what the biblical word “meek” means and that is the essence of this eighth condition for peace.

When Saul of Tarsus met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, Jesus asked him “Why are you persecuting Me? It is so hard for you.” The original language actually means, “It is hard for you to pull against the bit. It is tearing up your mouth.” When Paul asked his great question, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” he took the bit and became meek. That is what he means when he exhorts us to be gentle.

Gentleness is also listed as one of the fruit or expressions of the Spirit. Another way of describing this concept is to call it “acceptance” or “unconditional surrender.” Paul teaches us by precept and by his example that we must accept the discipline of the will of God until we are so meek we experience this gentleness. Paul is prescribing that we accept God’s will for our lives. His prescription here is “Don’t pull against or fight the will of God.” The peace of God will sometimes return because we realize that God could have prevented our challenging circumstances.

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances may be.” (Philippians 4:11)

Paul prescribes patience as part of his prescription for peace. Throughout the history of the church, patience has always been considered a great virtue by the spiritual heavyweights. Why is patience such an important virtue? For starters, patience is one of the nine fruit of the Spirit we find listed in the fifth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. When the Holy Spirit lives in us, one of the ways He wants to express Himself through us is a supernatural quality of patience.

In the Bible we are continuously exhorted to “Wait on the Lord.” In our relationship with God we might call patience “faith waiting.” Nothing will test or grow our faith like waiting. When we think God is not responding to our prayers it may be that what He is doing in us while we are waiting – like growing in us the virtue of patience – is more important than what we’re waiting for.

In our relationships with people, patience could be called, “love waiting.” I have found that the Lord wants to grow two dimensions of patience in us: He wants to grow “vertical patience” in us by teaching us to have a faith that waits. And He is growing “horizontal patience” in us by teaching us that in relationships, love waits. Love is the first and primary virtue through which the Holy Spirit wants to express Himself through us.

While impatience is a “peace thief,” vertical and horizontal patience are supernatural, God-given virtues that can produce spiritual heavyweights – and maintain the peace of God in our experience of life.

“…in earnest and thankful prayer…”
(Philippians 4:6)

Observe that Paul prescribed, “… earnest and thankful prayer….” (Most of these scripture quotes are from the J.B. Phillips translation). My paraphrase of thankful prayer is “grateful worship.” I have a litany of thanksgiving that has evolved in my devotional life over the last thirty years of praying through Paul’s peace prescription while accepting the hard reality of increasing limitations.

When we’re thankful, we have automatically moved our minds from the negative to the positive. When suffering from a disability that is causing us to lose our faculties one by one, we have two choices: we can continuously think about what we’ve lost, or are losing, or we can think about what we still have and be thankful!

As I have experienced the gradual loss of my faculties, I have personally found that I get more mileage out of this condition for peace than any of Paul’s other conditions. I have so many blessings for which to be thankful. I discover regularly that when I begin to focus my blessings, the peace of God is in place. As I think of all the problems I have because nothing works from the neck down, mentally I put those challenges on one side of a scale of justice, while on the other side I place my blessings. I always find that my good stuff far outweighs my bad stuff – and the peace of God returns.

I am convinced that if you will put your problems on one side of a scale and your blessings on the other, you will find that your good stuff will outweigh your bad stuff – and the peace of God will be in place for you.

“…If you believe in goodness…”
(Philippians 4:8)

Paul does not mean to suggest that we should believe in the good we have done for our salvation but for the maintenance of the peace of God in our life. In His writings he emphatically stated that we are not saved by good works. He is focusing here a “peace thief” that haunts servants of the Lord who have laid down a lifetime of service in the work of the Lord. As a pastor I have visited with couples who had spent fifty years in China, in Vietnam, or in places like New Guinea and were living in charity housing. It seemed they had absolutely nothing to show for their faithful service.

There was a godly and dedicated medical missionary, named Dr. Helen Roseveare, who served for twenty years building a hospital in Africa. All her life she had the discipline of asking herself, “Is it worth it Helen?” She did this at every juncture in her life. In a Mau-Mau uprising she was raped repeatedly and then tied naked to a tree while her hospital went up in flames and burned to the ground.

While that was happening, the thought occurred to her “Was it worth it, Helen?” The Holy Spirit in her welled up with the answer “Yes it was worth it because He is worth it!” She knew for whom she was doing it all.

Paul is writing this fifth condition for peace to faithful servants like her. He was prescribing that they should not be robbed of their peace in this way. They should never doubt the worth of the good they have done for Christ.

“The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.”
(Philippians 4:9)

Paul’s fourth condition for the peace of God is simply to do all the right things. Does it mean there is something we can do to maintain the peace of God in our life? Oh there certainly is! In the verse quoted above Paul is writing to his favorite church when he prescribes, that if they will do all the things they have learned, believed, heard and seen modeled in his life, then the God of peace will be with them.

The author of the fourth psalm cannot sleep because if he does the right thing he doesn’t see how he can survive. His insomnia and anxiety are converted into peace when he resolves to make whatever sacrifices he has to make to do the right thing and then trust the Lord for survival.

Sometimes the “peace thief” that is robbing us of peace is that we don’t see how we will survive if we do the right thing. We are therefore, like most people, doing the expedient thing. When that is the case insomnia and anxiety could be converted into peace if we will resolve to make whatever sacrifices we must make to do the right thing and put our trust in the Lord for survival.

Next time you are not in a state of peace, resolve to offer those sacrifices of rightness, and you will find that the peace of God will come flooding back into your life.

“…think on these things…”

(Philippians 4:8)

Someone has said “Five percent of people think. Ten percent think they think and eighty five percent would rather die than think. And the ten percent who think they’re thinking are just rearranging their prejudices.” In Paul’s third condition for peace he challenges us to join the five percent and think. He also tells us specifically how to think. It’s as if our thoughts are sheep and we are the shepherd of our sheep thoughts.

Paul challenges us to think about things that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely and good news. We naturally seem to think about things that are not true, dishonorable, unjust, impure, ugly, and bad news. Among other things, Paul is teaching us here the mental discipline of positive thinking.

I’m amazed at how Paul’s prescription for peace agrees with the teaching of Jesus. Jesus taught us not to worry especially about the things we cannot control. He highly valued prayer in His own life and taught His disciples that men should always pray. He also taught that the difference between a life filled with light, or happiness and a life filled with darkness or unhappiness is how we see things. His greatest discourse was eight attitudes that can make us one of His solutions and answers in this world.

According to Paul, having and maintaining the state of peace known as “the peace of God” is largely a matter of what we worry about or pray and think about all day.

What do you think about? Do you have hardening of the attitudes? Join the devout minority and think your way to the peace of God.

“…tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer…” (Philippians 4:6)

The second condition of Paul’s prescription for peace is that we pray about everything! Worry is unproductive and even counterproductive, but prayer is productive. So Paul prescribes that we worry about nothing and pray about everything.

Paul had a physical condition that he described as a “thorn in the flesh.” From some words he wrote to the Galatians I’m convinced he was suffering from a very severe problem with his eyes. In the original language he wrote that when he first visited them his eyes were so hideous to look at they made them want to vomit (Galatians 4). He also suffered from chronic fatigue. I resonate with his weakness. I have had chronic fatigue since 1978.

Three times Paul fervently asked God to remove this “thorn” from his life. And three times God said “No!” But God also responded “My grace is sufficient for you and that is all you need. My strength looks good on weak people.” (2Corinthians 12 LB) His weakness drove Paul to discover the strength of God. When he did, he not only accepted his condition but gloried in it so the power of God might rest upon him.

In his ministry this apostle saw many sick people miraculously healed. He knew God could do that. In his case, three times the answer was “No.” He was not bitter about that. He rather prescribed essentially, “Whether it is to receive healing or the grace to live with a physical condition, pray. Always pray because, unlike worry, prayer is always productive. So, pray about everything.”

“Don’t worry over anything whatever…” (Philippians 4:6)

In the fourth chapter of his letter to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul prescribed twelve conditions for what the Bible calls “the peace of God.” Those who have the Holy Spirit living in them must meet these twelve conditions if they want to live in this continuous state of peace. If you profess to be a follower of Christ and you don’t have this peace, if you didn’t know it’s based on conditions, is it really any wonder that you don’t have this peace?

The first of these conditions is: don’t worry. Paul doesn’t begin his conditions for peace this way because there is nothing to worry about. He prescribes this because worry is not productive. In fact, worry is counterproductive. Worry saps from us the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical strength we need to cope with our problems. If you examine this peace prescription of Paul carefully, you will discover that he tells us to replace our worry with something that is productive.

I once saw a sign which asked “Why Pray When You Can Worry?” I had hitch-hiked from the East to the West Coast of America to transfer to a college in California and I had $23.00 in my pocket. The godly old man who showed me the sign ran the employment office for the college and I desperately needed a job. He saw the worry in my face, pointed to the sign and asked me “Which one is it going to be, son?”

In his peace prescription Paul shows us how all of us must answer that question.

“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is fixed on You, because he trusts in You.” (Isaiah 26:3)

Isaiah wrote of a state of perfect peace in which God can keep you, continuously. However, he also wrote that this state of continuous serenity is based on two very important conditions: you must keep your mind centered on God and you must trust God. This peace is supernatural because it’s a peace you can have even when the circumstances of your life are chaotic.

Jesus promised that He would give His followers a peace the world would never understand because it comes from Him and could be theirs even in the middle of their storms of life. The early followers of Christ were persecuted. While suffering unimaginable cruelty at the hands of their persecutors many died peacefully because they had this peace I’m describing.

The Apostle Paul believed in this peace. In just one chapter of one of his letters he listed twelve conditions on which this peace is based. In another letter Paul described this peace as the fruit, or expression of the reality that the Holy Spirit lives in the authentic disciples of Jesus. We might therefore conclude that the basic condition of this peace is that the Holy Spirit lives in you.

“Christ in you” is the foundation on which all the conditions of this peace are to be built (Colossians 1:27 LB). Before we look at Paul’s twelve conditions for this peace I have a question I want to ask you. There is obviously something to believe and Someone to receive when you become a follower of Jesus Christ. My question is have you received Him?

“… His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him Who called us …”
(2 Peter 1:3)

Peter writes that God has given us everything that pertains to life and godliness. He agrees with Paul that all those things can be ours through the relationship we have with the One Who is calling us to live this quality of life. In another place Jesus described it as “life more abundantly” (John 10:10). Throughout the entire Gospel of John this quality of life is called “eternal life.”

Godliness simply means to live like God or with God-like qualities. Simply ask the question “What is God like?” and you define godliness. When you realize the impossibility of living that way, it’s obvious that we must find the power source to live that way somewhere outside ourselves. Peter tells us where to go with that. According to Peter, that power must be found in the knowledge of Him Who is calling us to live that way. Peter’s word for “knowledge” here actually means “to know by relationship.”

Paul wrote that all spiritual blessings are to be found in the spiritual dimension of life in a relationship with Christ. Peter is writing the same thing here. All things that pertain to life and godliness can be found in a relationship with the One Who is calling us to live His way in this world. In your personal relationship with God you will find the spiritual dynamics that equip you to live a godly life.