Shift Your Focus… Do you want to know the key to everything in your life?  Here it is:  It is how you think.

The term Paul uses for “think” in this verse is from the Greek term is “logizomai”.  It literally means to compute, to calculate—to think deliberately, proactively and strategically.  It speaks of an exercise in mental reflection that affects one’s conduct.

Now herein lies an important truth about the human mind:  What we do—our behavior—and what is done to us—our circumstances—do not produce what we think.

Rather, what we think produces our behavior in any given set of circumstances.

Psychiatrist William Glasser, the father of reality therapy, discovered in his study of how the brain works that man isn’t controlled by external factors, but by internal desires. Furthermore, our desires are predetermined by our thinking.  So he concludes that the mind is the command center determining conduct, and therefore, the critical issue for man is how he thinks.

Glasser only discovered what the Bible had long ago said—that we are the product of our thinking. Proverbs 23:7 says, “As a man thinks within himself, so he is.”  We are what we think! That’s why Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart” — the heart in Hebrew thought was the center of thinking — “for it is the wellspring of life.”

So if you want to improve your experience of life, deliberately and strategically change your thinking. When Paul says, “think about,” he doesn’t mean leave it up to whatever pops into your brain.  He’s saying to intentionally and rigidly allow only certain things into your mind. He is referring to the spiritual discipline of setting godly virtues and Biblical values as the gate-keeper of your mind.  He’s not simply talking about positive thinking, mere optimism, self-hypnosis or silly mind-games.  He’s saying to think deeply, rationally and habitually about the things of God.

God created us with a mind, and he commands us to think.  Isaiah 1:18 says, “Come now, let us reason together.” And the primary path for our reasoning is to be God’s Word. When God gave us his revelation, he didn’t give us a movie, or a series of music videos, not even a book on tape with background organ music.  He gave us the written Word, which by nature calls us and causes us to think.

In a his book, “Your Mind Matters, John Stott wrote, “Sin has more dangerous effects on our feeling than our thinking, because our opinions are more easily checked and regulated by revealed truth than are experiences.” That’s why Paul calls us in verse 8 to think deliberately, deeply, and critically about six things:

One, about truthful things—Jesus said, “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17). This calls for meditating on God’s Word.

Two, about noble things—the Greek term means “worthy of respect” and refers to what is noble, dignified, and reverent, as opposed to what is profane!

Three, on righteous things—this which is in perfect harmony with the eternal truth of Scripture.

Four, about pure things—that which is morally clean and undefiled.

Five, about lovely things—this word appears only here in the New Testament, and it means whatever is gracious, uplifting and ennobling.

Six, about admirable things—which refers to that which is worthy of veneration by believers and reputable in the world at large. In other words, things that are “excellent and praiseworthy.”

When you get serious about the spiritual discipline of right thinking, it will produce a new pattern of thinking.  That new pattern of thinking will produce a new pattern of living.  That new pattern of living will lead to a new experience of life, the abundant life, that Jesus said he came to give.

Everything God’s wants you to experience in this life is keyed by how you think. Ruthlessly tune out that which is inconsistent with your spiritual values and Biblical truth and practice thinking Christianly. Allow the mind of the Master to be the master of your mind. Then you’ll act Christianly and you’ll feel Christianly.

So start today—think about these things!

“Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap a character; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny”

Prayer… Father, take my mind and let it be always, only thinking of you. Let your Truth saturate. Let your Word consume me.  Let the mind of the Master be the master of my mind.  Today, O God, guard my mind in Christ Jesus.

Shift Your Focus… Paul is saying that the joy of the Lord is such a critical piece to an authentic experience with Christ that he doesn’t mind reminding us of this truth over and over until we finally and fully “get it.”  In fact, Paul says that Christian joy is so important that it actually serves as a guardrail to our faith.

Now just what is it that our faith needs to be safeguarded from? Simply this: Trying to achieve salvation—which is the fountainhead of our joy—through human effort. That is the crux of Paul’s attack in the next several verses.

The truth is, we can never achieve our way to either salvation or joy. So Paul launches an assault in verse 2 against those who teach that you can: “Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.” He’s talking about a group of “false teachers” who came to be identified in the New Testament era as Judaizers. These folks believed that Jesus was the Savior, but they taught that true salvation was evidenced only as believers observed the Old Testament Law. In their theology, you not only had to believe in Jesus, but you also had to conform to the Jewish rituals, observe the Jewish feasts, follow the Jewish traditions, and above all, submit to the Jewish rite of circumcision. This was a very big controversy in Paul’s day—the first heresy the Apostles came up against.

Did you notice the “kind” words Paul uses to describe these Judaizers?  He calls them “dogs,” and he is not referring to the kind of family pets we’re used to, but the kind of dogs you see a lot in the third world: mangy, flee-bitten vicious, dangerous scavengers.

Paul also calls these Judaizers “men who do evil.” That is, they pervert the Gospel of “salvation by grace through faith” by teaching that salvation is by grace plus by works of the Law. People who corrupt the truth that our good works are the result of and not the means to salvation are, frankly, evil! Literally, the Greek says they “promote evil.” And Paul takes it a step further calling them “mutilators of the flesh”. He is referring to the practice of circumcision and he uses a very descriptive and forceful word. The normal word for circumcision is “peritome”, but the word he uses in verse 2 is “katatome”, which some translations render as “false circumcision”, but the NIV translates with blunt and brutal accuracy, “mutilators of the flesh.”

Paul uses such graphic language here since what these false teachers were insisting on was akin to butchering the precious work of Jesus Christ on the cross to provide your salvation free of charge. Paul himself understood the folly of trying to gain salvation apart from grace. He describes his own well-intentioned but fatally flawed efforts in verses 3-9, which I will paraphrase this way: “I was a church member all my life. I attended church every Sunday—it was the biggest and best in town. I took notes, sang in the choir, served as an usher, taught junior high. I was a deacon, too! I was sprinkled as an infant, and just to make sure, baptized as an adult. I never missed communion and I always gave more than my tithe. I spoke in tongues and even interpreted my own messages. I was the model Christian.  But it was all a waste…I was still completely lost!”

Paul had climbed the ladder of spiritual success, only to realize when he got to the top, his ladder was leaning against the wrong wall. All the accomplishments, awards, and applause that were once the foundation of his righteousness and joy were gone in an instant when he met Christ on the Damascus Road.

Here is what is Paul saying: The joy of our salvation that safeguards our faith from the devastating effects of trying to gain salvation by works is simply the pure pleasure of knowing—intimately knowing—Jesus Christ as our Savior—the one who saves us by his grace, and as our Lord—the one who rightly rules over our lives with love and mercy.

“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss …to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.”  (Verse 7-8)

You can safeguard your faith today, and each day, by making every other pursuit, every other effort, every past accomplishment, everything else, a distant second to the simple pleasure of just knowing Jesus.  Rejoicing in the Lord places guardrails around your faith by reminding you of the powerful and profound fact that Jesus paid for your salvation in full—when you couldn’t pay a dime for it.  The joy of the Lord will prevent you from steering into the ditch of human effort by keeping you focused on the fact that your salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone—and nothing else.

So I will join Paul and say it again—rejoice in the Lord!

“Everything that Jesus did while He was here, He did it for you.”  ~Maze Jackson

Prayer… There is no greater thing than knowing you, Lord Jesus.  You are first, you are best, you are the greatest, you are my all in all.  And I lovingly give myself to you.

Shift Your Focus… Christian author Evelyn Underhill writes that a well-trained sheepdog will lay at the shepherd’s feet, looks intently into his eyes, and listen without budging until the dog has understood the mind of his master.  Then the dog jumps to his feet and runs to do it—and all the while, the dog never stops wagging its tail.

That’s really the believer’s call to joyful obedience, as well.  As Paul says, we are to do everything without complaining or arguing; we are to be ceaselessly grateful and boundlessly joyful!

Do you realize how unlike that most of us are?  We’re a grumpy, dissatisfied race of people living in a culture of complaint. We’re the most indulged society in the history of the world, yet we’re the most discontent. The more we have the more we seem to be discontent with what we have and the more we complain about it.

I read some intriguing sociological research recently about this culture of complaint that tied our discontent, particularly among the younger generation, to the trend toward small families.  The thesis is that in a materialistic society where families average two or less children per household, there you will breed self-indulgent kids.

Think about it:  When you have two kids, mom asks them as they’re getting ready for school what they want in their sack lunch. One kid says he wants PBJ and the other says she wants a tuna-salad sandwich.  So mom makes them their made-to-order brown-bag. As she drops them off at school, she asks what they’d like for dinner.  One wants this; the other wants that.

The kids are making the choice.  They’re given a great deal of input in family decisions, big and small:  Not only what they want to eat, but what clothes they want, where they want to go to school, even what church they want to attend.

Now if you were raised a generation ago and/or were in a large family, how much choice and control did you have in your home?  If you were like me, mom gave you two choices for dinner, and everything else:  Take it or leave it.  Do you know what the difference is?  Where you had larger families, the child bent toward the needs and values of the family.  But for 50 years or so there’s been a sea change with small families and family systems that tend to bend toward the needs/wishes of the child.  As a result, child-centered parenting and child-controlled families characterize the home in today’s society!

Social critic Christopher Lasch has observed that “every age develops its own peculiar forms of pathology which express in exaggerated forms its underlying character structure.”  What is our cultures’ exaggerated form?  How about a pathology of Narcissism!  Narcissus, you’ll recall from Greek Mythology, was the handsome youth who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Narcissism is self-love and self-indulgence—the double-pneumonia of our day.

What happens when the child finally leaves his or her child-centered home into a society that doesn’t bend to that now adult-child?  They find a world where they don’t get to be in control; where they are not indulged; where people don’t bow to this needs and wishes.  As a result, what that breeds is what sociologists call “moody discontent”, a society full of sullen, discontented complainers. That’s our world today!  Just look at the surveys. Poll after poll shows how richly blessed but increasingly unhappy we are—and willing to loudly express it!

Did you realize that few sins are uglier to God than complaining—especially among people who claim to belong to him.  Just read Exodus and Numbers if you don’t believe me. The word for “complaining” here in Philippians, which means murmuring and giving voice to your discontent, is the same word used in Exodus and Numbers of the complaining Israelites.  Do you remember what happened to them?  God punished severely.  The second word Paul uses, “arguing,” actually referred to getting into an intellectual debate with God.  It means to express joylessness and displeasure in the circumstances you are going through.  In reality, that is to call into question the sovereignty and wisdom of the God who allowed you to go through those circumstances for his purposes.  Both arguing and complaining have no business among God’s people.

On the other hand, few graces are more pleasing to God than joy and contentment.  Why?  While discontent and complaint exposes your lack of trust in God’s sovereign control, joy and contentment express complete trust that God is working things out for your benefit and for his glory.

Think about this:  Both complaining and contentment reflect your theology—what you believe about God.  I trust that that your joy and contentment are making the people who watch want to follow your God.  And if you are whining and complaining, call a stop to it right away.  God deserves better representation than that.

So at all times, keep your tail wagging today!

“Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.”  ~Benjamin Franklin

Prayer… Lord, forgive the whining and complaining that I sometimes fall into.  I have so many reasons to rejoice.  From this time forward, I pray that everything that comes out of my mouth will be only that which brings praise and pleasure to you.

Shift Your Focus… I really love this verse—it is one of my favorites. You probably love it, too. If you don’t, just think deeply about it for a while and I have no doubt that you will add it to your list of best Bible verses.

So why is this such a fantastic verse? Simply this: God always completes what he begins. He never starts a project without bringing it to a successful close. That includes you—you are one of his favorite projects. And what God began in you when you committed your life to his Son, He, himself, has promised to see that it comes to a glorious conclusion. He completes you!

Several years ago a popular movie called Jerry McGuire came out, and in it was a line that became quite famous and oft quoted. Depending on your perspective, the line was either really sappy—that’s what the guys thought, or incredibly romantic—or so the ladies thought. The line came toward the end of the movie when Jerry, who had been struggling to express his love to his wife, walked into a room full of women and boldly declared to her, “You complete me.”

Sorry to take you down movie lane, but Jerry’s lame line was really stolen from the Bible. But in the Bible, that line is not lame, it’s powerful. In fact, next to God saying to you, “I love you” and “you are forgiven”, you saying to God, “you complete me!” is the best line in the story of human redemption:

God has promised to complete you. And since God doesn’t lie, since He has never broken a promise, since He has never abandoned one of his projects, the truth of this verse should be your source for inexhaustible joy, unshakeable confidence, indefatigable energy and inexpressible gratitude. Likewise, knowing that God will complete you ought to neutralize chronic sadness, vaporize whatever insecurities you may have, and motivate you to get off your duff of inferiority and unworthiness and get on board with the work that God is already doing in you.

Michelangelo, the great Italian Renaissance artist, once said, “Do not fret, for God did not create us to abandon us.” Michelangelo knew something about starting and finishing works of art, wouldn’t you say?

God leaves no work unfinished. The God who saved you, and who began a good work in you, will complete you!

“By a Carpenter mankind was made, and only by that Carpenter can mankind be remade.” ~Erasmus Desiderius

Prayer… Lord, you give me joy unspeakable and full of glory. You have saved me from my sin and given me eternal life. You began a work in me, and you have promised to complete it. What you begin, you finish! I was a mess when you found me, and I still mess it up from time to time, but you are turning me into a masterpiece for your glory. What more can I say except “thank you!”