The 260 Journey

Day 178

Today’s Reading: Philippians 4

Did you know Amazon keeps track of your highlights? When Kindle readers mark sentences, the online retailer notes it so that everyone can see a faint dotted line on their e-reader that tells them someone underlined the sentence or passage. Readers can also see how many other people underlined that same passage.

Recently Amazon released a list of the most popular passages in some of its bestselling books, such as The Hunger Games, the Harry Potter series, and classics like Pride and Prejudice. Amazon also included the Bible in this list. Guess what the most highlighted passage in the Holy Bible was around the world? I covered the answer to see if I could guess correctly. I was certain it had to be one of three passages: John 3:16, Psalm 23, or the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13. But no, it was one that’s striking a deep chord in today’s worried world, and it comes from today’s chapter:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7, NIV)

Kindle readers throughout the whole world highlighted this Bible passage on their Kindle more than any other verse. Here’s the passage from The Message:

"Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life."

I love that part—“Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers.” As author Tiffany Berry once said, “If you’re going to worry, there’s no need to pray, and if you’re going to pray, there’s no need to worry.”

We live in a worried world. And anxiety can get the best of us. In The Me I Want to Be, pastor John Ortberg offers insight on how to respond to anxiety:

"Psychiatrist Edward Hallowell says it like this: Never worry alone. When anxiety grabs my mind, it is self-perpetuating. Worrisome thoughts reproduce faster than rabbits, so one of the most powerful ways to stop the spiral of worry is simply to disclose my worry to a friend."

In today’s chapter, Paul tells us who our best friend is to disclose our worry to: God Himself. As Donald J. Morgan says, “Every evening I turn my troubles over to God—He’s going to be up all night anyway.” According to the apostle Paul, we choose to shape worries into prayers and that in essence is disclosing it to our Friend.

I had someone once talk to me about their week. This person said, “I have sighed more than I breathed.” Wow, I have been there. Those are weeks weighed down with worry and not peace. When we’re in those kinds of weeks, as the saying goes, “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” Philippians 4 gives us a way to carry the load—by shaping our worries into prayers.

When was the last time you meditated on a Bible verse? Some people get weird definitions of what “meditation” is. Let me explain it like the Puritan writers of the past explained it. They said you know how to meditate if you know how to worry, as worry is simply negative meditation. When you worry, you think about the problem all day long.

When you meditate in a positive way, you take a Bible verse and turn it over in your mind all day long. This is one of those verses I would attempt to meditate on. Write it down and put it in your car so you can see it as you drive. Tape it on your bathroom mirror so that as you get ready for work in the morning, those are the first words you see. Tape it to the refrigerator door, the most used door in the home, so you can keep it always before you. And whisper to yourself all day long, “I am shaping my worries into prayer.”

It goes something like this: The washer is broken, and it will cost you $400, out of an already tight budget, to get it fixed. I will shape my worries into prayer, you remind yourself. So you pray, “God, You’ve got this. I’m grateful for the clothes on my back. And I would like to have clean clothes on my back. You can provide in ways I can’t even imagine. I give You this setback.”

Or it goes like this: You hear through the grapevine that your company is going to lay off employees. You have worked there for the past ten years. In your mind, you are fearful that you are not going to make the cut. You remind yourself, I will shape my worries into prayer. And you pray, “God, my future is in Your hands. You have always been faithful to me and my family, and I believe You will be faithful with whatever happens. I don’t have the energy or the emotional capacity to stress over this, so I let You take it off my heart and mind and let You carry it.”

An average person’s anxiety is focused on:

40 percent: things that will never happen

30 percent: things about the past that can’t be changed

12 percent: things about criticism by others, mostly untrue

10 percent: health, which gets worse with stress

8 percent: real problems that will be faced

The lead character, Van Wilder, in the movie of the same name makes an insightful observation, “Worrying is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do, but doesn’t get you anywhere.”

Shape your worries into prayers.

Day 177

Today’s Reading: Philippians 3

We mentioned this powerful Kierkegaard quote in an earlier day’s reading, but it bears repeating, because it fits the apostle Paul. Kierkegaard said, “It is so much easier to become a Christian when you aren’t one than to become one when you assume you already are.”

This statement seems to fit clearly with Paul’s evaluation of himself pre- and post-conversion in today’s reading. His assessment may shock you because it seems somewhat reversed. Here is how the apostle thought of himself before meeting Jesus in Acts 9 on the road to Damascus. As a reminder, in Acts 9, he was on his way to imprison and kill Christians. Let me read Philipians 3:4-6:

It’s true that I once relied on all that I had become. I had a reason to boast and impress people with my accomplishments—more than others—for my pedigree was impeccable. I was born a true Hebrew of the heritage of Israel as the son of a Jewish man from the tribe of Benjamin. I was circumcised eight days after my birth and was raised in the strict tradition of Orthodox Judaism, living a separated and devout life as a Pharisee. And concerning the righteousness of the Torah, no one surpassed me; I was without a peer. Furthermore, as a fiery defender of the truth, I persecuted the messianic believers with religious zeal. (Philippians 3:4-6, TPT)

Verse 6 in the New American Standard Bible says that “as to the righteousness which is in the Law, [he was] found blameless.” Found blameless? He was killing Christians, but he said he was innocent of any wrongdoing. One of the strongest deceptions of sin is that we exaggerate our goodness and importance and we become dismissive of our behavior. That’s exactly the lie of being a Pharisee.

The New Testament will use this word, the flesh. It does not mean human skin. It means human effort. It deals with human energy to make our humanity acceptable and exceptional, especially to God. In the Bible, God is clear that human effort, the flesh, cannot make God like us any more than He does already.

Here’s the part that Paul found as a hurdle to trusting his life to God—his flesh. Paul was saying, I had good flesh, or my flesh was making me look exceptional. That’s why Paul said if anyone could have bragged or boasted on how well he was doing it was Paul. This is what happens to a lot of moral people—they believe they are good and don’t see their need for a Savior.

In the book A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis profoundly observed, “All [of us are] equally bankrupt, but some have not yet declared.” Lewis was telling us that whether our flesh is good or bad, we are all bankrupt and need God. That’s our starting place with God—acknowledging, “I am bankrupt.”

Now I want you to see the difference between pre-conversion Paul and post-conversion Paul. He encounters the resurrected Jesus and has a new assessment after declaring bankruptcy with God:

I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back. (Philippians 3:12-14, MSG)

Before he was blameless and innocent. Now he recognizes he doesn’t have it all together anymore and is not even close. When we think about it, we would think the opposite should happen. Before we become a Christian, we feel like we don’t have it all together and after we become a Christian, we have everything together. And Paul shows us the opposite happened to him.

As C. S. Lewis wrote, “History . . . [is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” You will never find that happiness even when you are doing your best without God, because you will realize something is missing and something is hollow inside. The best man, the apostle Paul, got it. I hope you get it today.

Day 176

Today’s Reading: Philippians 2

We live in a time when it is more popular to be a celebrity than a hero. Numbers of followers or views have replaced the one who risks their life for others. Media has given us celebrities, where danger and risk give us heroes. The gap is much wider between fame and greatness. Heroism is linked to honor and bravery, while celebrities just have links. We have big names today but not big persons.

The scary part of all this celebrity worship is that we are seeing celebrities and not heroes rise in the church. We must be careful that we don’t allow pastors to become the center of the story. Jesus is. We have to make sure the “stars” aren’t outshining the Son.

Philippians 2 reminds us of who is the center of attraction. The apostle Paul gives us the Hero of the greatest story ever told:

God exalted him and multiplied his greatness! He has now been given the greatest of all names! The authority of the name of Jesus causes every knee to bow in reverence! Everything and everyone will one day submit to this name—in the heavenly realm, in the earthly realm, and in the demonic realm. And every tongue will proclaim in every language: “Jesus Christ is Lord Yahweh,” bringing glory and honor to God, his Father! (Philippians 2:9-11, TPT)

Paul not only wants us to remember this, he also wants to remind us of what the Father thinks of His Son. Paul tells us that God put Jesus on the pedestal. And we must always remember it’s all about the Son. As Augustine said, “Christ is not valued at all unless He is valued above all.”

Don’t get it mixed up. It’s not what church you go to, it isn’t who your pastor is, it isn’t whether your ministry is on television. It’s whether or not you choose the Son! Anything before that means you have chosen celebrity over Hero. Hero Jesus. That’s the name that gets you it all. That’s the name that gets you to heaven. Jesus is the name that changes your life.

I have had people tell me, “I tried Jesus and it just didn’t work.”

“Wait one second,” I tell them. “You may have tried church. You may have tried religion, or a denomination. But you didn’t try Jesus. It’s impossible to say, ‘I tried Jesus and it just didn’t work.’”

Why? Romans 10:11 answers that for us: “The Scriptures tell us that no one who believes in Christ will ever be disappointed” (TLB). Can you name one true follower of Jesus who was on his deathbed and said, “Jesus is a liar. I regret ever following Him”?

Jesus is not a hobby. He is not a Sunday thing.

The words Paul uses in Philippians 2 to describe Jesus is really important. He seemingly hijacks a verse from Isaiah 45, which speaks about Jehovah God, and he inserts it into his chapter to describe Jesus in Philippians 2:10: “At the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth.”

And now Jesus is being bowed to and declared to be Jehovah. Let me make it even simpler. Listen to Isaiah 45:21-23:

Is it not I, the Lord? And there is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none except Me. Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. . . . To Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.

God says in Isaiah that every knee will bow and every tongue confess to Him. Now in Philippians 2, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess to Jesus. It not only tells me about the deity of Jesus and that Jesus is God, it also reminds me that Jesus is the Hero of our story. Whenever I am tempted to follow a celebrity or try to be one, I need to remember Philippians 2. If we want to be reminded of our part of the story, remember the words of Robert Capon.

Jesus came to raise the dead. The only qualification for the gift of the Gospel is to be dead. You don’t have to be smart. . . . You don’t have to be good. You don’t have to be wise. You don’t have to be wonderful. You don’t have to be anything. . . . You just have to be dead. That’s it.

Day 175

Today’s Reading: Philippians 1

H. B. Charles Jr. said these poignant words about answered prayer: “It may seem God did not answer prayer when the real issue may be that we did not like the answer.” Today’s chapter discusses answered prayer in the apostle Paul’s life. If you don’t look closely, you can easily miss his prayer and his answer.

Always remember that our job is to pray and not forecast the answer on how we think it should be done. We leave that to God to figure out. Let’s look together to see what Paul was praying throughout his life and how the answer came in Philippians 1. Paul had a great desire to preach the gospel in Rome and made it a matter of prayer. Listen to some of these passages that reveal his heart:

Now after these things were finished, Paul purposed in the Spirit to go to Jerusalem after he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.” (Acts 19:21)

He wrote to the church in Rome and told them of his desire and prayer:

Always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you. . . . So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. (Romans 1:10, 15)

Paul had no idea how that prayer would be answered. But that wasn’t his problem, that was God’s problem. Philippians 1 tells us God did answer that prayer. How did it happen? Rome never became his fourth missionary journey on his itinerary, because he got arrested and put in jail. Can you imagine Paul saying, “I wanted to go to Rome and preach the gospel, and now I can’t go.” And then he was sent to Rome for his trial.

He wanted to go as a preacher but he went as a prisoner. He made it to Rome but he was in chains. He was eager to preach the gospel there, but because of his circumstances, that seemed like a bust—at least in Paul’s mind. Remember, we pray and let God figure out the answer.

But then it happened. Paul’s prison sentence became the platform. The trial was his answer. God came through. This is Philippians 1:12-14:

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear. (Philippians 1:12-14, NIV)

The palace guards were the handpicked bodyguards of the Emperor Nero. Paul was saying that as a prisoner he was chained to a Roman soldier, which meant the gospel had been penetrating the handpicked bodyguards of the emperor. The gospel was going through the most guarded palace in the world and was advancing. It was going through a palace that was very anti-Christ. Nero persecuted the Christians so harshly and inhumanly, that God decided to bring the Good News through Nero’s front door and into his palace.

Listen to Paul’s words again: “What has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.” His prayer was answered and even better than he prayed. He was not only advancing the gospel, it made its way into the elite army. The message was getting to the palace guards. Paul in Rome as a preacher; he was limited, because he was there as a prisoner, yet he was in a place he could never have gotten into—Caesar’s palace. And he got to preach in that high-security place for two years!

Paul was in Rome, the imperial city, capital of the world, the seat of the government, and right in the imperial palace—and so was the gospel of Jesus, because God answered Paul’s prayer better than Paul could ever have imagined. That’s why these words resonate even more on this palace answer from Ephesians:

Glory be to God, who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes. (Ephesians 3:20, TLB)

What was defined as an imprisonment was really an answer to prayer. It was beyond the prayer and desires Paul had back in Acts. Sometimes we stop short in our prayers, thinking God did not answer, when the real truth is, He may not have answered it the way we wanted.

One day I was listening to an interview with Luis Palau, considered by many to be the Billy Graham of South America. Luis said in his life he had seen God answer prayer five different ways. Remember these, because you will need them one day, so you can see imprisonment as an answer to prayer just like Paul did. 

God answers, “Yes, I thought you’d never ask.” We often tell everybody except the Lord that we need this, or we want that. Secondly, “No, I love you too much.” That’s a good answer to prayer. Many times the Lord answers, “No, buddy. I know better, and I love you too much to give you that one.” Number three, “Yes, but not yet.” Timing. Number four, “Yes, and here’s more.” That’s the one I really like. The Lord not only answers your prayer, but he throws in some extras. Then fifth: “Yes, but differently from what you thought.”

Five ways God answers prayer: 

1. Yes. I never thought you’d ask.

2. No. I love you too much.

3. Yes, but not yet. The timing is not right.

4. Yes. And here’s more.

5. Yes. But differently than you thought.

Day 174

Today’s Reading: Ephesians 6

Men will argue over which is the greatest “man movie” of all time. The movie “winners” range from certain Westerns to mob movies to the historical heroic tales of Braveheart, 300, and my favorite, Gladiator.

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator is set during a time of both Roman world domination and Roman persecution of a group who seem to beat Rome without weapons, the early Christians. Russell Crowe plays Maximus, the Roman army general. In a scene where he is in the arena fighting for his life with other gladiators, he tells these men: “Whatever comes out of these gates, we’ve got a better chance of survival if we work together. If we stay together we survive.” And they did. Maximus gave them the key to winning the fight.

In today’s chapter, Paul gives us a key to winning the spiritual fight. Ephesians 6 is called the spiritual warfare chapter. It speaks about the armor of the Christian by associating it with the armor of the Roman soldiers.

Ephesians is called a prison letter, because Paul wrote it while in prison. During that time, if someone was in prison, he was chained to a Roman soldier 24/7. Many believe Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was looking at the guard he was chained to and was giving the Christian a picture of his weapons in a bigger and different fight.

In Ephesians 6, Paul gives us two contrasts in the fight that we need to focus on. First, Paul tells us that people are not our fight, the government is not our fight, Democrats and Republicans are not our battle. It’s much deeper and bigger than that:

We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Verse 12, KJV)

If you want to get really raw, listen to this verse in the Passion Translation:

Your hand-to-hand combat is not with human beings, but with the highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms. For they are a powerful class of demon-gods and evil spirits that hold this dark world in bondage.

The apostle is warning us not to fight people but to realize we are fighting in another realm, the spiritual realm. That’s the first contrast—natural versus spiritual.

The second contrast, which we often overlook, comes when we read verses 12 and 13 together. In verse 12, Paul says that “we wrestle not,” and then in verse 13 he says, “put on the whole armor of God.” Then he proceeds to go through each of the Roman soldiers’ equipment and associates each piece with a spiritual weapon we have. The sword the soldier carries represents the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit. The shield protects the Roman against fiery darts, but for us it is a shield of faith to protect us from the enemy’s missiles.

The contrast comes between “we wrestle not” and “put on the whole armor of God.” For wrestlers in the first century, the men would oil up their bodies, enter a ring, and fight until one was actually killed. It was one man against one man. The apostle Paul is saying, though, that if we are Christians, we are not wrestlers, we are soldiers. That means we are not in the Christian life by ourselves. We have soldiers side by side.

One of the great things the Roman army used to do when going into battle was to lock arms with each other, which would show strength and unity in the hand-to-hand combat. We often lose because we wrestle instead of being a soldier.

Recently a number of Christian leaders, authors, and musicians have gone public, announcing that they are abandoning their faith. They have denounced everything from the books they have written to the songs they’ve composed. They have come to the conclusion that God does not exist. Let me tell you that their tragic declarations show that they have faced their faith as individual wrestlers, not as soldiers, and they did not lean on other soldiers. You can’t win when you wrestle by yourself. One of my dear friends said, “Only weak people think they are strong enough to do the Christian life alone.” These leaders who abandoned their faith were doing the Christian life alone.

Have you ever seen a redwood tree up close? They can stand upwards of three-hundred-feet tall (almost the length of a football field), and have roots that stretch only five feet under the ground and still remain unmovable. Their roots are shallow because they can’t go deep. But they do something else: they never grow alone. They know they can’t wrestle so they have to be soldiers. That’s why Redwoods grow in bunches. Their roots can intertwine with one another and be strengthened by one another. With that height and those shallow roots, what keeps them from blowing over and uprooting in wind storms? They are all connected to one another. A storm can’t blow just one over, it has to be strong enough to blow them all over.

Those tragic Christian leaders did not connect roots with anyone and they lost their faith and got blown over. They didn’t reveal that God doesn’t exist. The only thing they revealed is that their root systems did not exist and that they’d tried to wrestle instead of being a soldier.

Let me remind you of Maximus’s words from Gladiator: “Whatever comes out of these gates, we’ve got a better chance of survival if we work together. If we stay together we survive.”

Those are not just Maximus’s words, that is God’s Word in Ephesians 6.