Your Daily Bible

As we grow older, the need to be good is continually reinforced. We justify ourselves with how good we are, whether it’s as an employee, spouse or person. The way we describe each other confirms it.

“He’s such a good person.”

“She has a good heart.”

At the beginning of Philippians 3, Paul points out the flaws in this kind of thinking. If we’re chasing goodness, we’re chasing a moving target.

If anyone reading Paul’s letter thought he or she was a good person, Paul was better. He was raised in the right family, went to the right schools and followed the right path. But he says all of these things were garbage compared to knowing Jesus (Philippians 3:8).

That’s because knowing Jesus isn’t about meeting a standard but following a person. The relationship Paul had with Jesus was more fulfilling than all the religious accomplishments of his past. Paul still did good things but not because he was trying to be good. Instead, Paul’s good deeds were an overflow of the love He experienced from Jesus. The same is true for us. When we put Jesus above everything else in our lives, we end up doing good things not because we have to, but because we want to.

After writing that everything in his life is worthless compared to knowing Jesus, Paul goes on to say he hasn’t lived up to Jesus’ example yet. Paul wasn’t perfect, but “forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,” he continued his whole-hearted pursuit of Jesus (Philippians 3:12-14). Like Paul, many of us need to give up trying to be good enough and run to the One who is enough.

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Life never seems to go the way we imagine it will in our heads.  No matter the effort we put into preparing our day-to-day lives, unforeseen circumstances can leave us feeling frustrated.

Many of us have believed the lie that Christians won’t have troubles.  But Jesus tells us plainly in John 16:33, “... In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

We will have problems. The question is what we do when we face obstacles.

In Philippians 2, Paul writes that we are to have the same mindset as Jesus. Jesus’ life was full of difficulty. Jesus had every reason to complain but never did.  And even though Jesus was divine in nature, He never used His equality with God to His advantage. He humbled himself and took the position of a servant.

Keeping that in mind, think about the things we complain about:

Why is the traffic messing up MY schedule?  

Why can’t they ever get MY order right?  

Why didn’t they give ME the promotion?  

Could pride be at the root of some of our complaints?  

Jesus didn’t deserve the pain He endured, yet He we willingly walked into God's plan for him regardless of what it cost him. That kind of behavior gets someone’s attention. Can you imagine if we all did the same? We would stand out among our peers as “stars in the sky” (Philippians 2:15).

Jesus came to bring people to His Father. When He left, He challenged us to do the same. As we choose to humble ourselves, taking on an attitude of gratitude instead of grumbling, we point people toward our Father.

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Are you chained to a secret addiction?

Trapped in a dark depression?

Feeling the weight of past mistakes or the effects of a failing marriage?

When everything seems to be falling apart, and we are certain we have let God down, grace intervenes and reminds us the story isn’t over yet. It’s only an intermission.

Paul’s life was certainly not going the way he had planned when he found himself alone in a prison cell. Yet, in Philippians 1:4-6 he wrote, “I always pray with joy… being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.”

Your circumstances may not look good today. (They certainly weren’t for Paul!) Yet we can have joy and confidence knowing if it’s not good, God’s not done.

Not only is God not done with you, He wants to use the very circumstances you are struggling through today. In Philippians 1:12-14 we are reminded that God can use even the difficult things that happen to us to draw us closer to Him. 

Your mistakes, your failures, and your heartache are part of your story. And when you fear you have let God down, grace trades our shame for hope, and trust and courage, knowing our pain is not wasted and God is bigger than the circumstances we feel “chained’ to right now.

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Our world has perfected the art of performance-based love. It is exhausting to feel like you’re only as valuable as you are expendable.

The good news is that our performance does not determine Jesus’ love for us.

It can be difficult to wrap our minds around how Jesus loves. We easily fall into the habit of performance, viewing Jesus’ commands as rules to follow instead of a means to intimacy with Him. But 1 John 5:3 says it is out of love for Jesus that we obey His rules — not the other way around.

God’s commands have not been put in place to oppress us, but to free us. God’s plan for our lives is the best plan for our lives. So when we give God ultimate control, it gives us ultimate joy.

If we measure our value on how well we’re following the rules, we make our faith about us instead of Jesus’ death on the cross. Obedience is not about how we perform, but how we respond. We say yes to God because we love Him, not out of obligation to Him or because we want something from Him.

Obedience is as simple as listening to Jesus and doing what He did, and what he says. Don’t simply try to follow the rules — follow Jesus.

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What if God was not love? What if He existed as all-powerful and all-knowing but lacked the attribute of love?

Love sets our God apart from the gods of every other religion. Other religions say strive, our God says, “Love.” Everything He made and everything He’s done was an act of love for us. When we see love in the world, it’s a reminder that we were made in His image. Love exists among us because it’s part of God’s character.

God is often described as our Heavenly Father. For those of us who had loving fathers growing up, seeing God as a loving dad is an easy way to comprehend His love for us. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. God doesn’t just love us; He is love (1 John 4:16). Love is not just what God does, it’s who He is.

It is one thing to be loving. It is infinitely more significant for God’s character to define and be defined by love.  Love is patient, kind, humble, and eager to serve others (1 Corinthians 13). Because God is love, He is by His nature all these things as well.

God cannot be indifferent to what happens to us because it’s not in His nature. We can take comfort in submitting to a God who is love. And, we can bear any circumstances knowing we walk through them with a God who loves us and wants the best for us.    

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It's easy to love people who love you back. But then there are times when it's not so easy to love. The times you have been hurt and wronged. Are you still supposed to love someone who hurts you? And, if so, how?

In 1 John 3:14-15, John, one of Jesus’ closest friends, warns us that hating someone makes us murderers in our hearts. God wants us to love even those who are hard to love.

Our ability to love others on our own is pretty limited. It's circumstantial, based on how we feel about the other person and the way he or she treats us. But with God’s help, we are able to love others the way Jesus wants us to — everyone, all the time.

We can show real love because we’ve experienced it. Jesus gave up His life for us before we ever knew Him. That willingness to love those who don’t deserve it is what John is calling us to. That is what it means to follow Jesus.

1 John 3:24 promises that as we open our hearts to love others, we experience a deeper relationship with God: "The one who keeps God's commands live in him, and he in them.”

Are there people in your life that you need some extra help loving? It’s OK to be honest and ask God for help loving others. He has given us all a great capacity to love, and in His strength, we can overcome all barriers.

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Already this week, most of us have probably lost our temper with our kids, ignored an opportunity to be generous, or let the urge to have one more get the better of us.

We're not yet who we want to be, but we're not who we used to be either. Before meeting Jesus, we were oblivious to our sinfulness. After meeting Jesus, the Holy Spirit inside of us makes us aware of our sinfulness — not out of condemnation, but out of a desire to help us change.

We cannot meet Jesus and stay the same. John, one of Jesus’ closest followers, and friends, writes, “No one who lives in [Jesus] keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him” (1 John 3:6).

When we understand the depth of what Jesus did for us, it draws us to Him. And as we spend time with Jesus, the desire to sin starts to lose its pull. Saved people are not perfect people, but they are forgiven people. And forgiven people change.

Salvation is a starting point, and the same Spirit that drew us to Jesus in the first place will continue to shape us over time. Even on our worst days, the Holy Spirit doesn’t leave us or abandon us. He continues to draw us back to Jesus, time and time again.

One of the best ways to know if we are children of God is to look back at our lives and ask: Was there a time when I asked Jesus into my life? Is my life different now than it was back then? As we listen to Jesus and do what He says, we are being change daily from the inside out into His very own image.

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Have you ever been through a season where you felt like you weren’t hearing from God or seeing Him work in your life? You prayed, you studied the Bible, but inside you wondered if He even hears you. 

After a while, it’s easy to think, "Maybe I’m not even really saved."

In 1 John 2:18-29, one of Jesus’ closest friends reminds us that we are children of God. No matter what we feel on any given day, if we know the Father, and we declare that Jesus is Lord, we are His and we are promised eternal life.   

When everything about our circumstances tells us to turn our backs on God, John says, "remain in him" (1 John 2:27). Often our best next step when we feel like God is silent is simply to keep moving forward.

Persevere, trusting that He is working behind the scenes. Persevere in the knowledge that you are His, trusting that everything He does will somehow work together for your good. And finally, persevere in praying, reading the Bible, and coming to church, trusting that his ways are higher than your ways and being obedient to the things you know he has asked you to do and He will meet you there.

John promises that if we’ll push through the tough times, we can be confident and unashamed before Jesus when He returns (1 John 2:28).

We can’t always see God in action or hear His audible voice, but He is always there. God is speaking every day in ways we don’t expect. The same way that deep friendships are developed through seasons of conflict, seasons of joy, seasons of closeness and seasons of separation, our relationship with God deepens as we persevere in faith through the ebb and flow of life.

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Every Christian wants to know the secret to avoiding sin. When Jesus tells the woman caught in adultery, “Sin no more,” we wonder, “How?” When He tells His disciples, “If you love me, keep my commands,” we ask, “Is that possible?”

John, one of Jesus’ closest followers, says it is. In 1 John 2, John gives us three ways to prevent sin and show Jesus we love Him.

1. Keep His commands.
In 1 John 2:3, John says, “We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands.” Sin is a way of saying, “I don’t love You right now as much as I want, love or need this other thing.” Our love for someone or something fuels our devotion to it, and our devotion demonstrates our love.

Sometimes emotion is lacking, but that doesn’t mean that the devotion should cease. Being disciplined and keeping God’s commands is a way of demonstrating our love for Him, even if we don’t “feel” like loving Him at the moment. Keeping God’s commands also helps us avoid sin before we ever approach it.

2. Do not love the things that belong to this world.
What we serve shows what we love. That’s why Jesus said believers cannot love both God and money (Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13). John takes this one step further in 1 John 2:15, writing, “Do not love the world or anything in the world.” Avoiding sin means being careful not to direct our love and devotion to anything other than Jesus.

3. Remember that Jesus always advocates for us.
None of us are perfect. Sin may be unintentional, or we may knowingly step into sin. No matter how or why we may sin, John reminds us of an ultimate and freeing truth: Jesus is always advocating for us (1 John 2:1-2). To advocate is to defend, and Jesus defends us with His sacrifice on the cross.

All sins are forgiven in Jesus, so when you do find yourself in need of forgiveness, ask for it honestly and wholeheartedly, knowing that He does forgive. And then go, and sin no more.

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When was the last time you sat back, looked around, and realized you were grateful for your life?

Joy is what we experience in moments like that. We’re connected to something deeper than surface-level emotions and the positive or negative events in our lives.

Joy is an internal contentment regardless of external circumstances.

We lose out on joy when we’re separated from God and separated from others. That separation is called sin.

Our relationships are restored when we don’t hide our sins, but bring them to Jesus and ask for forgiveness. Because of what He’s done — dying on the cross and coming back to life — we’re no longer stuck dealing with our sins alone.

This is some of the best news in the entire Bible: Our cleanliness, or purity is only possible because of God’s forgiveness (1 John 1:9).

Jesus doesn’t ridicule us or shame us; He welcomes us and exchanges our sins for His joy.

Connection with God and with others is where joy comes from. When He removes the barrier of sin, we experience joy far better than we ever could on our own.

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