HAVING A CHRIST-LIKE ATTITUDE (PART 1)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded...being one in spirit and of one mind.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.

Philippians 2:1-2b, 5

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

As we turn the page to chapter 2 of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we find him reminding the Christians of Philippi about the behavioral indicators that will show they are living with a Christ-like attitude. We’ll look at these expected actions over the next several messages starting with these words from the Apostle:

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded. Vv. 1-2b

Note here how Paul highlights what the Lord brings to an assembly of His followers.

1. Encouragement from being united with Christ.

Christians are of Christ. Plain and simple. He is the One who provides their identity, the One who puts the Christ in Christian. He is the head of any and all Christian churches (Ephesians 5:23, Colossians 1:18).

Christ is also the sole way to salvation and no one comes to God the Father except by Him (John 14:6). If any person hopes to have any encouragement in life, they need to place their belief in Jesus and the believers in Philippi had so Paul urged them, individually and collectively, to be encouraged by their relationship with their Savior, the Son of the God Most High.

2. Comfort from the love of Christ.

Jesus Himself said this:

There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are My friends if you do what I command. John 15:13-14

God gave up His only Son to save us out of love (John 3:16) and Jesus carried out His Father’s salvation plan out of the greatest love known by willingly laying His life down for those who would place their belief in Him as Savior.

Through this great display of love, an agape love that brings Christians salvation, individual believers and collective congregations should always live with a sense of comfort and ease for Jesus has set and sealed their eternal futures.  

3. A common sharing of the Spirit.

Christian believers within a church don’t have different spirits. Rather, they are guided by one Holy Spirit, the holy Counselor Jesus promised that God would send and indeed, after Jesus ascended, God delivered the Spirit at Pentecost, anointing the disciples in a special way to carry on Christ’s work for the cause of the Gospel.

That same Holy Spirit is the tie that is to spiritually bind believers within any church so that they might function with a commonality in and through Christ Jesus.

And this leads us to the first behavior that shows a body of believers within a church is serving their Lord, one another, and others with a Christ-like attitude. For Paul calls for the Philippian church (and us today) to be like-minded.

If strife ever has existed, or exists now, within a church, you can almost always trace the problem to a disruption in like-mindedness and in particular, like-mindedness with the Holy Spirit. Let one person in the church start behaving in ways that are out of the step with the Holy Spirit and you will begin to see the seeds of dissension take root and dissension, when it takes full root, serves as a disruptor of unity in Christ and the like-mindedness of Christian collectives.

If a church wants to be like-minded, its Christian believers need to be all in when it comes to alignment with the Holy Spirit. For it’s through that common sharing of the divine Counselor sent by God that assembled believers will remain united while individually living with a Christ-like attitude.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com