Believers Attitude

[newnature]

Sowing one thing and praying for another is foreign to the mind of the apostle Paul. That’s not how it works. That’s not what Paul’s talking about in trusting in God. There are people who sow nastiness then they expect kindness to just sprout up all around them. A lot of people trust in God to alter the circumstances of the moment. They think he’ll somehow magically rekindle the fire of a lost love after they’ve chose a life incorrectly. Or he’ll bring them the right job after they’ve sown an attitude at their previous place of employment that caused everyone around them to want to avoid them. There are those who sow to bad health only to pray that God will guide and lead the hands...provide the wisdom to the doctors they hope will heal them. That’s not what this passage in Philippians 4:4-7 is all about. When the circumstance of the moment is a happy circumstance, lets say things are going well health wise...things are going well for the children, grandchildren...the monthly bills are paid, the job is secure. We know the details of life. When everything is well on the home front that’s when we can say a person might very well be happy. Of course, happiness is fleeting. Circumstances can go south. If joy were dependent upon the situation at hand, it would be uncertain as a match lit on a windy day. 


The joy Paul is talking about has no relationship to the transient nature of life. So the believers attitude needn’t to become victim to uncertainty or adversity. Joy is a trust issue. Joy for a believer is a state of mind independent of surrounding circumstances. Rejoicing is the exhibit of that inter-state of mind. Prayer - an attitude of mind, a continual trusting and thanking God. Is the purpose of prayer to call God’s attention to our plight? Is there anything hidden from God? No. If this is true, it was then and it is now, must we actually utter something for God to know what’s on our minds? He knew before we uttered it. He knew it before we thought it. Prayer was not given for the purpose of making God aware of our circumstance or situation, our problem or our plight. So are we to pray? Yes. Does it matter what we pray about? No. Was prayer given that we might call God’s attention to our problem? No. If prayer was not given to benefit God, then for what purpose was prayer given? It was given to benefit us because God knew through our life we’d be stressed out. And God gave us a way to release that stress and demonstrate our trust. It was given for the purpose of our peace.

[Robbie]

I understand that Newnature. Thanks.

I especially like this part -

"Was prayer given that we might call God’s attention to our problem? No. If prayer was not given to benefit God, then for what purpose was prayer given? It was given to benefit us because God knew through our life we’d be stressed out. And God gave us a way to release that stress and demonstrate our trust. It was given for the purpose of our peace."

[newnature]

I understand that Newnature. Thanks.

I especially like this part -

"Was prayer given that we might call God’s attention to our problem? No. If prayer was not given to benefit God, then for what purpose was prayer given? It was given to benefit us because God knew through our life we’d be stressed out. And God gave us a way to release that stress and demonstrate our trust. It was given for the purpose of our peace."

When Paul was in prison, do you think Paul was happy? When peace of mind is based solely on circumstances, depression is the ultimate end for all. A mind-set of glorious joy can only begin with a proper understanding of God’s glorious grace. Understanding peace with God, fully understanding, comprehending, appropriating and appreciating peace with God is that which allows the peace of God to rule our minds. Therefore, we need to govern our emotions. Grace is the fountain head of joy. How can we understand the unsearchable riches of the Savior? To the extent that we understand that which God’s grace has accomplished on our behaves which is the believers blessings in heaven to that extent we can understand the unsearchable riches of the Savior which is the unfathomable grace of God. Exactly what God provided us through the blessings of what Jesus accomplished for the believer. Each and every blessings is to provide for you a place of security and a place of specialness that you know that is there for you in the mind of God. You are secure and you are special.

[Robbie]

That's nice.

[newnature]

That's nice.

God’s integrity is at stake in doing what he promised he would do. We can have security of mind that we have Jesus’ test score written on our paper in Heaven. Sanctification can also be a source of great comfort and assurance because sanctification like justification is proof positive that once a person takes God at his word concerning the accomplishment of his son, that person remains in a sanctified identity before God forever, performance notwithstanding. We cannot lose by way of our poor performance what we never gained by way of our good performance. God has dealt with that problem of sin and the issue with sanctification is not about sin, but about perfection. Paul told us that sanctification is how God perfected us, made us as equally righteous as God himself. Based upon the fact that we are already sanctified, there is now no condemnation for us.

[Robbie]

I was reading Romans 8:1 earlier about that. Thanks.

[newnature]

Justification and sanctification go hand in hand. Justification is the believers gift declaration of righteousness. Sanctification is how that judicial degree of righteousness is achieved. Every believer is set apart by God as being holy at the point of that believers belief. God is the one who is performing the setting apart. God accomplishes this sanctification by joining all who believe to his son. Saint is God’s word for a believer. God sets every believer apart, sanctification is about that issue. Paul even called the carnal believers at Corinth saints or set apart ones because even though they were carnal, they had believed Paul’s good news message. Paul was not only first in line when it came to dispensing the Grace of God, Paul was also foremost in crime when it came to murdering the saints of the earthly kingdom program and the blasphemy associated with God’s ministry at Pentecost. 


God has set the believer apart and he calls them righteous based not upon what they do or what they abstain from doing where God’s concerned, but on Jesus’ righteousness and their faith in Jesus’ faithfulness on their behalf, because it’s at that point of their belief that God set them apart. God alters the believers identity by removing them judicially in God’s mind from an identification with Adam number 1 and now they are judicially identified with Adam number 2. But, throughout human history, people have refused to accept the finality that death brings to life. Death brings an unacceptable, sudden interruption to one’s work, plans, and relationships. After all, the death rate is still one per person. The serpent’s lie, you will not die, has lived on throughout human history to our time. 


Jesus’ victory over death affects the believer’s understanding of physical and eternal death. The believer can face physical death with the confidence that Jesus has swallowed up death in victory, because Paul was eagerly awaiting God’s purpose for Paul. The glory that Paul knew would be revealed in him at the manifestation of the sons of God when the sons of God receive their glorified bodies when the believers meet Jesus in the air (not on the earth). For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

[SusanDoris]

Whenever I hear people extolling the virtues of Paul, I  think of the time I listened to the New Testament all the way through.  I bet the recipients of his self-important-sounding letters had to brace themselves before reading them, wondering what he was on about this time, and I bet they had a straw draw to see who was the unlucky one who had to respond this time. What  do  you think of his letter on circumcision, New nature? Did it make you wince?

[Bubbles]

Whenever I hear people extolling the virtues of Paul, I  think of the time I listened to the New Testament all the way through.  I bet the recipients of his self-important-sounding letters had to brace themselves before reading them, wondering what he was on about this time, and I bet they had a straw draw to see who was the unlucky one who had to respond this time. What  do  you think of his letter on circumcision, New nature? Did it make you wince?

Why would it do that?

It was just that the new church had lots of gentiles join and the early Jewish Christians thought every man should be circumcised, and Paul in his letters said no. Because it was a new covenant.
That's my understanding of it.
It was probably one of Paul's more sensible decisions,
Why ask a lot of adult uncircumsized men to get the chop?

[Robbie]

That is right, Rose. Paul's attitude too(& I assure you am not great Paul fan) was that we can't judge people who may want to continue Jewish traditions but we are no longer bound by them. Such as dietary laws etc.
Circumcision went on to have different meaning to Christians than the physical chop.

[Anchorman]

Paul kept trying to hammer home the point to Jewish Christians that the New Covenant was in place, and that there was no need to cling on to the traditions of the past based on a Law that could not be fulffilled. He made it clear that the New Covenant meant that, as he put it in Romans 10:9 "If you say with your whole being that Jesus Christ is Lord, and believe that God has raised Him from the dead, then you will be saved." No ifs, no buts, no maybes, no snips either.

[Robbie]

Romans 8 says that too.
Romans 14 is kind about the dietary stuff, couldn't have been easy to leave all trads behind & Paul appeared to understand that.

[newnature]

Whenever I hear people extolling the virtues of Paul, I  think of the time I listened to the New Testament all the way through.  I bet the recipients of his self-important-sounding letters had to brace themselves before reading them, wondering what he was on about this time, and I bet they had a straw draw to see who was the unlucky one who had to respond this time. What  do  you think of his letter on circumcision, New nature? Did it make you wince?

Romans 2:25-28 - Circumcision, or the setting aside of the flesh was simply the sign, according to the apostle Paul, that God gave to Abraham to point out that Abraham had placed his faith in God and in God alone, and not in himself. Abraham learned that it would not be his own fleshly production that would accomplish God’s purpose for him. It is significant when we think about Abraham’s faith, that God wanted Abraham to place no confidence in his flesh. Is it not interesting that the Gentiles had been considered dogs? Now you come to Paul speaking to the saints in Philippi, and it is the unbelieving Israelites who are considered dogs. Beware of Dogs; Beware of Evil Workers; Beware of the Concision. Just the fact that they were of the physical linage of Abraham did not cut the mustard as far as their righteous standing with God was concerned. Paul’s point here is circumcision apart from faith is nothing more than concision. It is nothing more than mutilation. You see, the concision, although it sounds like the word circumcision, the concision is a reference to those false teachers who thought that ritual, who thought they could do something, perform something and the ritual was circumcision.