Blog »  A Purpose for Living

Thursday, June 13, 2013 Jeff Lampl

NOTE: Can you find a way to sneak in one more reading of Philippians chapter one today?

“Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  . . .. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith. . ."                             Philippians 1:18-26 (ESV) 


Okay, I do believe this. I believe that God will use anything at all for my and your good. Do you believe this? The key is to believe that whatever is happening is being, at any given moment, used by God for good. So I must be able to believe this, stand on this and say this to other people. In that way God is honored and I am living above my circumstances, not under them. It’s important to realize that this is not psychological as in “choose a positive attitude”, rather it is simply acknowledging what is true and aligning your life with that. 

Are you willing and able to align your life with what is true? In what ways do you do so? 

Paul then explains a hard but simple truth. God’s working everything together for good may mean that I die, which means that I will be resurrected with a new body to continue my life on a renewed earth. Actually this is something I practice every day simply by going to bed, losing consciousness, and trusting that I will wake up to the dawn of a new day full of infinite possibility. Furthermore, I go to sleep (the Bible’s way of talking about death), trusting that my loved one are safe and accounted for in God’s trustworthy hands.

So why do Christians seek to continue to live? Of course lots of reasons exist. But here’s the big one: to live for the sake of others’ “progress and joy in the faith so that they will have ample cause to glory in Jesus”.