I learned something over the weekend at a bible conference that actually worked. One of the speakers said to clip and paste scripture from biblegateway.com so that there are no chapters and verses to a passage. This morning I read Philippians 1:1-30 without verses, like a letter. What a difference. Go ahead and do that now, see what jumps out at you.
Philippians 1:12 ..."that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel." (NKJV)
I was first struck by the love Paul had for this church. Must of been a cool place and I'm sure he was close to many. (see 2 Cor 8:1-6) Secondly verse 12 jumped out at me because bad things happen to good people, and deep down I truly believe they happen for a reason, that reason being to further the gospel, to help others come into relationship with Jesus Christ. I know Satan is real, and that he causes many bad things to happen, to draw us away from God. However, I believe God is using him like a puppet, a rag doll sounds better for some reason, and that God is accomplishing His purposes through the good and bad, no matter what rabbit trail we take in life. And get this, "For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake,..." (verse 29) Ya, we're gonna suffer for Jesus Christ. I wanna make sure my suffering is for the furtherance of the gospel, not for the hindrance. Guaranteed!
Grace, MB
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And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. AMEN!
Now that sounds like love to me. Do you know how long it took to cut and paste all those verses? whew! Well that was what jumped out at me both times I read it. There's passion in that prayer..
Matt, why is there numbers on the words? (Verses)
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