All of Me / Selah
Take my life and make it Yours, Lord
Fill me with Your love
You are all I need
I surrender all of me
I knew that I had not listened to this song today, so I assumed this could be another one of those “teaching moments” when the Lord gives me a song because he wants to teach me something through it in coordination with his word. So, Lord Jesus, I pray, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” I read Philippians 2 this morning, so I will now read chapter 3:
No Confidence in the Flesh
1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.
2 Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Pressing on Toward the Goal
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
15 All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
17 Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. 18 For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
My Understanding: Paul said it was no trouble for him to write the same things to the believers again, so he was writing to them about something here that he had previously written about, and that is on the subject of false teaching and false teachers. The reason he was writing it, and the purpose for writing it again (repeating the same or a similar message), was as a safeguard for the believers. Safeguard means protection, precaution, and preservation - for a dual purpose of protecting and preserving their faith and the teaching they had been taught at the beginning, and also as a precaution to them against allowing this false teaching or false teachers to lead them away from the truth of the gospel.
Then, Paul went on to describe these false teachers. He described them as dogs, men who do evil, and as mutilators of the flesh, which was a reference to insisting on physical circumcision and adherence to Jewish practices as prerequisites for salvation. A dog was often a term used in the Bible in a derogatory sense and/or as a term of censure. The “dogs” referred to here were most likely wild dogs who roamed the streets. The term is used more than once in the Bible in reference to false teachers. They were those who put confidence in the flesh of man and man’s accomplishments through human effort, knowledge, etc. They were often prideful, too, for all their many human achievements.
Another grouping of these false teachers is those described at the end of this chapter, i.e. those who live as enemies of the cross, whose god is their stomach, and their glory their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. I believe this is the group most dangerous to the church in this generation because so much of what goes on in the church today is for the purpose of appealing to the flesh of man and giving man what he wants and desires, rather than in leading people to understand what God’s will is and that we should do what HE wants. These false teachers have watered down the gospel and have soft-pedaled the gospel message to where it is no gospel at all. I understand Paul’s tears as he recalls these who live as enemies of the cross. The church today in America has become so much like the world that we, as the church, do not shine like stars anymore in holding out the word of life because we are too much like the world when we follow this false teaching that placates sin rather than sends it to the cross.
In contrast to these “dogs,” were those who “the circumcision:”
“In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:11-12).
This kind of circumcision is spiritual, i.e. this is the working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts in saving us and crucifying our sinful natures and raising us with Christ to walk in newness of life, no longer under the control of sin, but rather under the power and control of God’s Spirit working within our hearts in transforming us and in conforming us into the image of Christ. These are the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, not by human traditions or external religious practices. Jesus talked about this with the woman at the well when he told her that one day people would not worship God at one specific place, but they would worship him “in spirit and in truth.” That is because Jesus knew that when he left the earth that he was going to send his Holy Spirit to indwell the lives of believers in Jesus Christ, so we no longer have to go to a building to worship God, because God’s temple is within us if we are true believers in Jesus, so we can worship God anywhere and at any time.
These of this “circumcision of the heart” group are also those who “glory in Christ,” not in the flesh of man. Their hope is in Christ alone, not in human flesh or in human religious practices, rules, regulations, forms of religion, etc. This also carries over to not putting our faith or confidence in man or in buildings built by man or programs of man, etc., but our faith should rest in Christ alone and in him crucified, dead, buried and risen from the dead. The hope of this “circumcision” group is not in conformity to external demands that are added on to God’s grace and are taught as required for salvation such as circumcision, baptism (physical) – many parallels between circumcision and baptism – or speaking in tongues, among others that might be required by men for salvation but not required by God. What is required by God is faith expressing itself through love for God and love for our fellow man. And, I John makes it clear that if we say we love God, we will not continue living a sinful lifestyle, and if we love him we will obey him, and we will love others.
Paul described his life before Christ when he was putting confidence in his flesh, but then he said that whatever he gained through his own prideful accomplishments he now considered as rubbish; loss; something to be thrown away for the sake of knowing Christ. How many of us could say that? How many of us would gladly toss aside all our human efforts at gaining knowledge, talent, success, prestige, and places of honor, etc., in order to follow Christ? That means that we are willing to just walk away from it all to follow Christ if that is what it takes to be found in Christ and to gain Christ and his righteousness that comes by faith in him, and in him alone.
I can remember when I was taking classes at York Tech and I was getting straight A’s. That felt pretty good, especially since I graduated high school with a 1.4 GPA/4.0 and I finished college the first time around with a 2.5/4.0. I could have kept going to York Tech and could have enjoyed the honor of being a straight A student, and I could have gone on and gotten a degree, yet the Lord had me walk away from all that to follow him in ministry. I was also working toward getting credentials with a church denomination, and he had me walk away from that, too, to follow him in ministry, i.e. a ministry that gets me no recognition to speak of, no honor, no following, no prestige, yet what it does get me is peace and joy in knowing that I am following my Lord and that I am, perhaps, like Paul, able to help safeguard other believers in Jesus Christ from following into the trap of false teaching and of false teachers.
I love this verse: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…” That is my prayer, too! Yet, I, like Paul, have not attained all this. I am far from perfect. Yet, I do press on to take hold of what Jesus Christ has for me each day in what he wants to teach me through his word and in what he would have me share with others, as well as to take hold of living the Christian life in a manner that would be a light for him and for the gospel and to love my family and my Christian family, but I don’t do any of that perfectly, either. So, each day I must put behind me the inadequacies of my human flesh and I must keep going forward in Christ in walking with him, in obeying him, in being his servant, in loving others, etc. I press on in the power of the working of the Holy Spirit of God within me to accomplish what God has for my life, i.e. what he had prepared for me to do in advance even before I was born. I pray:
Take my life and make it Yours, Lord
Fill me with Your love
You are all I need
I surrender all of me
All of Me - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZR8Y19qffM
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