With most musical instruments, every time you play, you have to check them just to see how far they’ve gotten out of whack. We’re the same way in that we need to “stay in tune with Jesus” by keeping our thought life and attitudes in the right place. To stay in tune with Jesus, our thoughts and our attitudes need to be repeatedly adjusted.
We can learn a lot from Paul’s example as he reconnects with a church that he loves and with which he has a long relationship. Both Paul and the Philippian church are well acquainted with suffering, yet manage to encourage one another.
This is a letter full of joy. The words “joy” or “rejoice” appear in some form 16 times in 14 verses. Unlike many of Paul’s letters, this one was not written to correct problems, but mainly as an expression of love and thanks to a church that partnered with him in the spread of the gospel.
How did you learn to pray? In most traditional you learn set prayers repeated word-for word. We don’t normally do it that wat, but set prayers can be helpful, especially if they are scriptural. They can also be used as models when we don’t pray them word-for-word. If we want to invigorate our prayer life the prayers of Scriptures have a lot to teach us about God’s priorities in prayer.
Central Reflections 