Worth The Struggle | Daily Devotional 1634

You're listening to My Morning Devotional Podcast, episode 1634. Today's table is called Worth the Struggle.

Hey there, we're the Alexis, a ministry family working together in our church in Miami, Florida. And if you're like us, when days get busy, the to-do lists get longer, it can be hard to find devotional time. That's why every weekday we share a five-minute daily dose of heaven. This is the My Morning Devotional Podcast.

Good morning, everybody, and happy Thursday. Welcome back to My Morning Devotional Podcast. My name is Rochelle Alesi, and I have the privilege of being with you and being your host. This month, we're going to be going over the book of Philippians. And for this week, we're going over chapter one. And it's all really been about joy and perspective, about the circumstances of our life, not predicting who we are or what we do, and truly finding our all in Jesus Christ. And it's funny because I just said this out loud, but reading these verses is not easy because you truly feel the passion of Paul through these words. He was so wordied that he uses the Lord Jesus Christ like powerfully. And I'm trying to read it like I feel he would have like thought about it and felt it. But that is such the beautiful thing about the word that it truly becomes alive when we read it. And even though I never met Paul, one day we'll meet him in heaven, we feel his passion for Jesus through his writing. And I am so thankful that the Lord provide the word of, provides the word of God for us, where we get to feel this passion and this love and this zeal that he had, no matter his circumstance. And so I hope that you're feeling the word this week a little bit deeper. And I really do pray that the Holy Spirit is speaking to you this week because his word is alive. And I really uh pray that he is moving in your life through these beautiful words written thousands of years ago. And so today we are going to read Philippians 1, 27 through 30. We're gonna finish the chapter because tomorrow we're gonna come and just review the entire week. Um, but we're gonna go over these verses and it says, Whatever happens, conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel, without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved, and that by and that by God. For for it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have. Yet his priority is not what he's going through, but his priority is saying to us, guys, make sure that the way you behave is worthy of the gospel. His priority is that when people hear about you, they know you're a Christian because of the way that you are behaving. He even says that we as we stand together in this, that we should not be afraid of those who oppose us because them seeing us unified will make them scared. They will know that they will be destroyed because of the way that we are unified. And Paul was speaking here to a group of people, people that were starting a church, and I don't know all the right theology about this, so my husband can speak more on that. But what I do sense here was that we know from the scriptures and what we've read this week that Paul's priority was, hey, God is the center of my life, and whatever happens, it does not matter because I know he would deliver me. But most importantly, as long as Jesus is being spoken about and preached and his name is being exalted, he is happy. That's what he cares about. But he even goes a step further here, instructing the people that he's writing to by saying, guys, stay unified in your beliefs in Christ, believing the word wholeheartedly, because that is what's gonna make us strong together. The people who oppose us cannot even oppose us or think they can oppose us because of how unified we are in Christ's beliefs and behaving in a way that truly represents God. This is a struggle worth living for. And now I'm speaking more about not your personal struggle, but the struggles that we go as Christians. The things that we stand for are not popular. The beliefs that we believe are not popular. Our principles sometimes are not popular, it's not what the world is celebrating today, not all the time. In fact, it's probably the things that the world is going against. Believing what we believe from the Bible is the thing that the world is opposing. So this verse speaks to us today. And his command is hey, we have to behave in a word in a way worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ, because we are walking testimonies of Jesus Christ. And so I really want my morning devo to be a community that stays strong in the beliefs and in the word of Jesus, that we don't just pick whatever we like from the Bible and we say, hey, we can apply this, but we don't need that. No, that we look at the entirety of the Bible and we say, This is my life. This is what I believe. If it's in the Bible, it's for me. If it's not in the Bible, it's not for me. That as Christians all over the world, this is why I love this podcast because there's so many Christians listening from all over the world, guys, that the Bible is the thing that brings us together and we say, hey, we're gonna stand strong in all of these beliefs. And in that, we will represent the Lord in a worthy, in a worthy way of the gospel. And so I encourage you guys today that look at your life as a Christian. Yeah, there are some struggles, it's not might not be the most popular thing, and then on top of that, we have our own struggles, but man is worth living for because we know Jesus already won. We know the Bible, Jesus died and rose again and conquered death, and now we have salvation through him. So we know that we serve a God who's already won, so we can put all of our trust in him. We're not gonna get to the end of this life and say, Man, was this the right thing? We will know, and as we go in life, I promise you, it will be even more evident that yes, we are making the right decision by believing Jesus wholeheartedly and everything that he has to say, and not just parts of it, but all of it. And so I pray that this is how we stand today. And let's pray. Dear Father God, thank you for the entirety of your word. Thank you because you struggled here in this world. You came and you died for us and rose again so we can have eternal life, and so we can be confident today that we can put our entire trust in you, that we can believe the Bible and its entirety because it is your living word, Lord. You came here for us. What a loving God you are. And so we give you our life. We say we believe this. And I pray that every listener listening will just get a passion in their heart to know your word to such a deep level and stand up for your word no matter the struggle, no matter what the world has to say about it. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

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