After a challenging week dealing with what God has asked us to deal with, lets re-read the passage from Phillipians 1: 20-21

‘I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.’

To recap from last week:The desire on Paul’s heart is two fold:

1. To not be ashamed of his testimony of the gospel
2. To see Christ exalted in his life

Paul then states that he desires this ‘whether by life or death.’ This is the focus for these two weeks. How can we see Christ exalted in our life through life and death? Last week we focused on ‘through death’ and this week we will look at ‘through life’.

Through Life
‘for me, to live is Christ.’ Paul’s heart here shows us that anything that filled Paul’s life failed to compare with his desire to see Christ exalted. Paul had a view that life was inly important if it meant that Christ was exalted in his life. In other words, Christ would always be the central driving force behind Paul’s actions.

Unlike the Pharisees in Matthew 15: 8-9 whose focus was their own exaltation, Paul’s example to us challenges us to always put God’s plan and purpose first.

Our application this week is simply to ask the following question:
Is there anything in my life that I have placed before the will of God?

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1. ‘for to me…. to die is gain.’
2. Knowing that Christ is your desire
3. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me – Galatians 2v20

Stop for a moment! Find a way to block out the distractions for the next five minutes. Today we are going to use our imagination.

I want you to imagine your heart as a big storage room. A place where you hold everything and everyone most dear to you. As you walk through the front door there is a TV that is playing back all the good memories with old friends and family. You love to reminisce about these times, they bring you so much joy. That why you store them here, its where they are the safest. Nobody else can take these beautiful memories from you.

As you walk further in you trip over a book that is filled with all the life lessons you have learnt. Not the stuff you learnt at school, that information is housed in the brain. These lessons are more important. They remind you who you can trust, how life works and that sometimes you have to look out for yourself. They record everything in the most incredible detail. Ready for retrieval at anytime.

The room is filled with a mist which makes it hard to see everything clearly. The mist wasn’t this heavy last time you were here, it seems to get thicker as you store more stuff in your heart. The mist has a very distinct aroma, but it seems to change from a vengeful stench to a romantic perfume. You begin to realise that this mist that envelopes your memories and lessons is your emotion. That mist that is fed by what you store in your heart. It filters through the cracks in the door of your heart and starts to govern your mind and your actions.

The decisions you make in your heart are stronger than the decisions you make in your mind. The decisions you make in your heart have a stronger foundation than those in your mind.They are more personal and they have emotional attachments that cannot be shaken.

That is why God is so interested in your heart! He knows what goes on in your heart is more important than what goes on in your mind. He understands that your heart governs your life.Thats why Jesus says in Matthew 15: 8-9

‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’

Jesus is speaking about the Pharisees and how he sees that their hearts our governed by selfish ambition to be the most Godly person. Jesus says they worship in vain because their hearts are centered on themselves.

We are going into a series on worshipping God over the next few weeks and I pray that this series will challenge you to focus your hearts on God.
The Pharisees looked like they were doing well at God’s work but God was not interested in their work because the ‘mist’ that surrounded their heart reeked of vain worship.

Related Posts

1. Knowing that Christ is your desire
2. When last did your heart beat?
3. ‘for me, to live is Christ’