It has been said that working with people can be the biggest obstacle to getting anything done. As Christians, how can we find joy in work, and with people, that can be difficult? In Philippians 4, Paul encourages 2 co-workers in a disagreement to be reasonable.

Everybody is searching for joy. But life is hard. What we are hoping for doesn't always happen. So how can we find real joy in all facets of life? In Philippians 3, Paul tells us that, even with the outstanding resume he possessed, nothing compared to his relationship to Christ.

Is there something you expect or hope for when you think about your life in general? The Apostle Paul wrote the book of Philippians while he was in prison in pain, awaiting his execution. Despite these circumstances he wrote, “To live is Christ. To die is gain”. Where does that expectation come from? In the book of Philippians, we find out how we can have a similar attitude no matter our circumstances.

You’ll never find in the Old Testament a directive to hate your enemy. It’s not there. And yet as we look back on our history we’ll find many instances where we have justified our hate even while calling ourselves believers. In the book of Matthew, however, we read that Jesus tells us to love our enemies. But how do we love our enemies? When we’re trying to figure out how to love an enemy we start not with our feelings or the events that led them to become our enemy. We start with Jesus.

Pride causes us to stay horizontally-focused first. We are always looking around comparing ourselves to others instead keeping our focus on God. We know that humility is the opposite of pride but how do we truly live in humility? In the book of Luke we learn that the way up is down.

Our world is full of trouble. The Bible tells us so. If we don't remember this, we can have expectations for how our life should look. When those expectations are not met, there's disappointment. In the book of Genesis we read about Joseph who had great dreams for his future, that were delayed or even different from what he expected. We can learn from his experience that the grace of God is often found in the trials of life.