If

you hear that a former pastor is in prison, you get concerned. What

happened? Did he do something terrible? The Philippians had heard

that Paul was in prison, so Paul reassured them that he was there

because of his mission to share the good news about Jesus.

And

to that Paul added an encouragement: the gospel was being preached

more

as a result of his being a ­prisoner for Christ! That was good

news, but there was a flipside: some of those preachers had some very

wrong, selfish motivations. For some reason they preached against

Paul even as they preached the gospel. Maybe envy drove them to try

to turn the spotlight onto themselves. That wasn’t honest or

Christlike at all.

But

how did Paul respond to that? “What does it matter?” he wrote.

Really?! Didn’t it bother him that some were preaching out of

selfish ambition? Apparently not. Why? Because Paul was head over

heels in love with Jesus and the good news of salvation. So if Christ

was being preached and the message rang true, hallelujah!

That

jaw-dropping truth is a challenge for us all. Do we love Jesus so

much that we can let other concerns drop? Even if we don’t like a

certain preacher, are we excited enough about the gospel to rejoice

that it is being shared anyway? That’s a tough one. But by grace

Paul achieved that mindset. We can too.