Thursday, March 12, 2020
For His Purposes
“For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I am in chains because of Christ.” (Philippians 1:13 nlt)
What do you get up for every day? It doesn’t hurt if I smell coffee in the morning. Throw in some bacon and eggs, and now we’re talking. But what really gets you moving in life? What drives you? What do you dream about? What are you passionate about?
Only those who are prepared to die are really ready to live. And when you live for Christ, you will accept God’s will for your life.
In Philippians 1, the apostle Paul declared what he lived for: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (verse 21 nkjv). Paul went to Rome to preach, but he ended up under house arrest. Yet the apostle was reaching an elite group of people who wouldn’t have been reached otherwise.
Paul understood that God had His hand in it. He wrote, “And I want you to know, my dear brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News. For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I am in chains because of Christ” (Philippians 1:12–13 nlt).
Paul shared the gospel with the Praetorian Guard, which is really quite significant. Then he added, “And because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God’s message without fear” (verse 14 nlt).
Examples of evangelism spark others to be more evangelistic. If you’ve ever been around an evangelistic Christian, then you know it can be quite contagious. When you run into a person like that, you think, “I can do that.” And you can, as a matter of fact.
God has put each of us where we are for His purposes. We don’t want our lives to simply be some blip on the screen or just another statistic. We want our lives to matter.
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