Philippians (Program #57) – A Life Full of Forbearance But Without Anxiety (5)
In Ephesians chapter 1:3 and 2:6 the apostle Paul says that we have been blessed and have been seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Well it might say that in the Bible what does it say in your experience? Day by day are you in the heavenlies or do you find yourself spending your time in anxiety? Most of us would have to truthfully answer that we spend much more of our time wrestling with anxiety than enjoying a life with Christ at peace in the heavenlies. The truth is that after men fell, human life become a composition of anxiety and worry. So how it is then the apostle Paul also said in Philippians 4 “Let your forbearance be known to all men. The Lord is near. In nothing been anxious.”?
We have emphasized again and again that this is the book focus on the experience of Christ. To experience Him, we need to live Him that we can magnify Him, we saw that in 1:20-21 then we need to take Him as our pattern and pursue Him as our unique goal. In our Christian life we should have the unique mind, a mind to pursue Christ and to gain Him. After covering all the aspects of the experience of Christ. Paul somewhat surprisingly turns us in chapter 4 to these two matters that we are talking about today, forbearance and anxiety. On the positive side surely we need forbearance, on the negative side, we would love to be free of anxiety. Why at the conclusion of such a profound book with so many deep things, did Paul at the end of this book touch matter like forbearance and anxiety?
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