When a rich, young ruler asks what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus doesn't tell him to pray a prayer or make a decision, but to sell his possessions and follow Him. Although it has the common elements of repentance, faith, and following Him, Jesus' message of eternal life is specific in seemingly each and every case, whether it be to the Samaritan woman at the well, Nicodemus, Zaccheus, or here to the rich young ruler. This young man may have been able to pray a prayer, but he wasn't able to follow Christ because of his great wealth. Though in earthly terms he was first, he was truly last as he walked back to his land and riches.

Our children are the earthly picture of what we must spiritually become to enter the kingdom. When parents begin bringing their children to Jesus to be blessed, the disciples try and turn them away. But like He so often does, Jesus welcomes them to come because their humility was the essence of entrance into the kingdom. Not only were children welcome to come, they were the picture of how we must come! Children aren't the second way of salvation; they're the only way!

As the Pharisees try to trap Jesus on the issue of marriage by making him side with one of the rabbinical schools of thought of the day, He confounds all in His hearing with the fulfillment of the law: "What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." Even though these religious leaders could only recall the case law that was given because of the hardness of their hearts, Jesus points them to Moses' words in the beginning of Genesis to show them the one flesh union between man and woman as long as they both shall live.

Contentment eludes most because it seems to lie in an ever-escaping dream that may never be a reality. But Paul learned the secret of being content in whatever circumstance he found himself. Being content in his present situation taught him how to be content in any and every situation, so that he could truly do all things through Christ who strengthened him.

As a man thinks, so he is. The things we think about, dwell on, and consider, have an enormous impact on how we feel, what we do, and who we are. As Paul brings this letter to a close, he exhorts the believers in Philippi to think. In these two verses we find incredible insight into the connection between thinking and doing, between the mind, the heart, and the hands.

For many, the idea of peace is for problems to disappear. But the peace of God, which surpasses comprehension because it can remain in every circumstance of life, is increasingly realized as we let our requests be made known to Him in prayer. This peace guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus as we obey this command to be anxious about nothing.

As believers, our citizenship is not ultimately in the place we were born or where we live, but in a place we've not yet been. We're citizens of the country to which we're heading. Paul's earthly citizenship lie in one country that would be gone as he knew it within a decade (Israel), and in another that was being built up for its great fall (Rome). But his true citizenship lie in a better country, the heavenly one that lay ahead of him.

The greatest hinderers of the gospel in the New Testament church were the Judaizers. Paul was so serious about warning the Philippians of them that he renounced every bit of his own Judaism according to the flesh. He even went so far as to count his whole resume as loss and consider all things rubbish for the sake of Christ, so that His identity was found in Christ alone.

To say you are a Christian is more than self-identification, but requires self-examination. The Apostle Paul gives the church at Philippi both a warning and assurance when he exhorts them to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, remembering God is the One willing and working their salvation. This means that when we test ourselves to see whether we are in the faith, we are really examining the work that God is doing in us.

Unity requires more than equality. Unity requires humility. When Paul appeals to the church at Philippi to be unified, he does so with the example of Christ, who, being in nature God, did not consider equality with God something to grasp onto in His incarnated life. He emptied Himself, not by putting off His divine nature, but by taking on the nature of a slave, the lowest human in the Roman Empire or the Jewish world. And He kept going down, as He put Himself in the path of the cross. Jesus went as far down as a man can go as a crucified slave, and then was exalted all the way back up as glorified Lord.