Paul reminds us in Philippians 1:3-8 that no Christian lives life alone, we are members of a family and are in great need of each other. There are those that profess faith in Christ but want nothing to do with their brothers and sisters but I’m a bit suspicious of their profession because the Bible says that one of the unmistakable signs that we are born again is that we love the brethren. Paul thanked God for them, all of them, even those in verses 15-16 who hoped to add more time to Paul’s sentence. He was thankful for their continued partnership with him in the gospel. Paul was able to see three dimensionally:
•Not just as a person was
•Not just as a person is
•But all the way to where a person will be when God is finished with them!
Oh how the body of Christ could use more folks that can see three dimensionally! Paul’s confidence was not placed in the person but in the Person of Christ.
You can take an unfinished portrait and try to see what it will look like and find that it’s hard to imagine it being finished. But your confidence in its completion is not in the portrait but rather in the artist who began the work and will see it through to its completion. God’s work in humanity is threefold:
•The work He does for us—salvation
•The work He does inus—sanctification
•The work He does through us—service
A woman came into the pastor’s office for marriage counseling and said, “There seems to be friction in our home and I really don’t know what the trouble is.” The pastor replied, “Well friction is caused by one of two things” and he picked up two blocks of wood from his desk to illustrate it. “If one block is moving and one is standing still, there’s friction. Or, if both are moving but in opposite directions, there’s friction. Now, which is it?”