“In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy. I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.” Philippians 6:15
Isn’t it a great feeling when you have a sense of inner peace, even in the middle of hard times? Things around you may be bad and well on their way to worse, but you feel secure on the inside, confident that God is in control and willing to trust him to provide.
That is not a feeling you can just talk yourself into. You can’t dial up your “everything is going to be ok” pep-talk and produce peace. The reason is that just the moment you are telling yourself everything is going to be ok, it seems like things immediately get worse.
That kind of inner peace comes, I believe, only as a gift from God. Only as we fix our hearts and minds on Jesus, who He is and what He does, can we experience peace and joy. When we get our eyes off the stuff around us and fixed on the people that Jesus has brought into our lives can we see the gift of joy and peace that God gives us
That love and peace is part of what Paul had in mind when he tells us to “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 be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, fill with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.” The passage we looked at last weekend. Joy and peace is the message Paul wants to share with us in the Book of Philippians. When we know Jesus and know the gift of walking with him, we begin to see those around us who don’t know him. We develop a hunger to tell them about Jesus so that they too can experience peace in their lives.
I hope last weekend’s message left you with several challenges: First, be grateful for the good in people. Second, practice positive prayer, and third, be patient with people’s progress.
I am looking forward to seeing you on Sunday.
-Pastor Bill