Philippians: The Secret of Contentmentنموونە

Grow In Christ

Did you make any New Year’s resolutions this year? Have you been good at keeping them? No, me neither. These days just getting enough done to stay afloat seems achievement enough, doesn’t it?

And then up bounces Paul, with his boundless zeal and endless enthusiasm for growth and development!

It is exhausting, but it is also somehow inspiring. ‘Self care’ is all very well, and God does command us to find rhythms of rest in our lives, but there comes a point when we start to think, ‘There must be more than this.’ And there is.

Paul reminds us that alongside the seen reality, there is a deeper, higher, richer one. We will never find true contentment until we lift our eyes and recalibrate our lives around the eternal purposes of God instead of our own, very limited, temporal ones.

Paul’s goal was not simply to survive his imprisonment; he wanted to know Christ and live out Christ’s righteousness. He wanted to experience the power of Christ’s resurrection and win the prize God had prepared for him, even if that meant sharing in Christ’s sufferings.

Recently on Twitter, I saw someone comment that in the 21st Century we tend to write about how Christ is present with us in our sufferings, but early Christians were more concerned, like Paul, with how they could enter into Christ’s suffering. We want to be protected from pain and difficulty; they knew that true joy is found through becoming more and more like Christ, however hard the road.

What might that look like in your everyday life? How can you pursue righteousness when you’re trying to pay attention to that Zoom call, or keep your children on task while trying to stop the cat sitting on your lunch? How can you experience the power of Christ’s resurrection when you’re facing complaints or abuse from customers, or sitting alone at home wondering if you’ll ever find a job?

Paul’s advice is, ‘copy me; learn from others who have gone before’ (see 3:17) – try reading or listening to classic Christian biographies or the writings of early believers. Find ways to remind yourself of the fact that ‘our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform [us]’ (3:20-21). It won’t be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.