Note from Celeste:
Before we look at today’s lectionary reading, I’d like to draw your attention to my Advent Bible Study books.
Getting Ready for Christmas is part of the Choose This Day Multiple Choice Bible Studies series, available in paperback and ebook.
The daily devotionals take 10-15 minutes and include:
- Scripture passage (World English Bible)
- Fun, entertaining multiple choice questions focused directly on the Scripture passage
- Short meditation that can be used as a discussion starter.
Like an Advent calendar, Getting Ready for Christmas begins on December 1 and ends December 25. However, these 25 devotionals focusing on the Messiah can be used any time of year.
Use this book personally during a coffee break or with the family in the car or at the dinner table.
Order Getting Ready for Christmas today to prepare your family for this year’s Christmas season!
CLICK HERE for Amazon’s Kindle book of Getting Ready for Christmas.
CLICK HERE for Amazon’s Paperback of Getting Ready for Christmas.
And here’s the link to its puzzle companion book: Getting Ready for Christmas Word Search Puzzles for Advent.
It’s a large-print puzzle book with over 1,200 hidden words taken straight from the same 25 Scripture readings. (30 puzzles in all.)
If you’re not in the U.S., you can still order the books from your country’s amazon platform. Simply search for “Getting Ready for Christmas” by Celesta Letchworth.
Thank you for your consideration! And thank you for faithfully following Tom’s SOAR blog!
AND NOW, BACK TO TODAY’S LECTIONARY READING:
START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Philippians 1:3-11
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM
OBSERVE:
Paul is writing to the first missionary church he established in Europe during his second missionary journey around 50-52 A.D. Sometime after 56 A.D., he wrote to this church in Philippi.
This is largely an upbeat, joyful letter, although internal evidence suggests that Paul has either been recently or is currently imprisoned when he is writing:
I want you to know, beloved, that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ (Philippians 1:12-13).
He expresses his thanks and joyful prayers for:
sharing in the gospel from the first day until now.
And he expresses his confidence that what God has started in their lives he will also finish:
I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
This is an expression of faith on two levels.
First, there is the assurance that God is responsible for beginning and completing his good work in their lives — this is a statement about grace.
Second, Paul takes the second coming of Jesus as a given, and points to that day as the consummation of God’s good work.
Paul’s motivation for this letter is to express his prayers and his apostolic guidance in their lives as they prepare for the time to come:
And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
Ultimately this passage is a prayer from an imprisoned apostle that is written with the view of preparing these people to be sanctified as they await the end of days. Their pure and blameless lives would be the harvest of righteousness that results from the seed sown by Christ.
APPLY:
Sometimes we may become discouraged at the set-backs that we experience in our own lives, and in the circumstances of a perplexing and dangerous world.
We may even wonder how we may remain faithful in the face of such a confusing culture. Paul’s words, written from a Roman prison after facing opposition, trials and temptations, provide guidance.
We can follow Paul’s example.
- He expresses his heartfelt prayers — we must pray also.
- He speaks of the mutual love between himself and the community of faith — we must share that same love.
- He speaks of his joy (even in his chains!) — we may respond to adversity with joy.
But above all we are reminded of his wonderful apostolic promise:
….that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
RESPOND:
My dad, who was a Chaplain in the Air Force, used to have a sign on his desk:
Please be patient. God isn’t finished with me yet.
Someone cross-stitched a similar sign for my desk years later after I shared that story. I cling to that thought with great hope.
I know that what God has done for me in Christ Jesus is something that I don’t deserve. If being made pure and blameless depends upon me and my accomplishments, I’m doomed.
Thanks be to God, my righteousness is not mine, it is Christ’s righteousness, as Paul explains later in his letter:
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith (Philippians 3:8-9).
This makes me confident as I await the coming of the day of the Lord, because:
….the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
Lord, the thought of your return fills me with apprehension when I consider my inadequacies — until I remember that you have forgiven me, and you will finish what you started in me! Finish what you started in me, Lord, that I may stand before you pure and blameless! Amen.
PHOTOS: "BV - Philippians 1 6" by New Life Church Collingwood is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
SOAR Lectionary Bible Study 