"Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content; I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound.  Everywhere and in all things I have learned to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need."  (Phil 4:11-12)

                I am sure that the Apostle Paul was beset with complaints from the various congregations in which he was ministering.  Many people probably coming to him with complaints, of how they were struggling in their lives.  Or perhaps the blessings were not quite to their liking...not big enough, not fast enough.  Or how Paul could improve the ministry, and by the way, "lighten up a little Paul, you take this Jesus thing too seriously."  But Paul seems to have handled this with the response that we read in Philippians 4.

                Some people knew the struggles Paul had contended with, but many probably did not.  To many I am sure he appeared to be a nearly blind, intense man that surely was out of touch with modern Roman culture.  The reading of some of his letters leads us to see Paul in the light of the seriousness of which he took his ministry.  Paul knew where he had been and what God had asked him to do.  Paul alone had been confronted by Jesus on the Damascus Road and sat blind in a room for three days waiting for a touch and a word.  Paul had been given that word and then driven off into the Arabian Desert for three years to be trained up, not by men but the Holy Spirit Himself.  It was Paul alone who had suffered countless beatings, imprisonments, and near death experiences which he lists in his second letter to the church at Corinth.

                So it was with quiet confidence that Paul could say I have learned to be content.  I have learned to be at peace with where the Father has me at this very moment in my life.  "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."  (Phil 4:13)  He had discovered that as long as he followed the Lord's leading and voice, that no matter what he had to endure he was right where God had placed him.  And that his inner strength gained through Christ, would carry him through to his destiny.  What was his destiny?  Paul's destiny would be to reach Rome and declare Christ to the very seat of the world's authority...the emperor himself.

                Paul knew that anything short of him standing before the emperor's throne he would survive.  He knew that the prophetic word in his life would be fulfilled because he had been obedient and faithful.  God had given him a destiny and a purpose which he knew that through Christ, he would somehow fulfill.  When the voices would come to turn his head one way or another, Paul knew he could ignore those voices and hear only one voice...the Holy Spirit.

                Consider Paul's journey to Rome.  He preaches and nearly convinces King Agrippa to become a Christian.  He ignites a revival on the island of Malta.  And finally spends two years in Rome under a modest house arrest preaching, encouraging and firmly establishing the church of Rome.  The final act would be to preach to the emperor and then be executed.  Failure you say?  Less than three hundred years after Paul preaches to the very seat of the power of the ancient world, the Roman Emperor Constantine becomes a Christian and the world is turned upside down.  Sounds like God's plan to use Paul was the right plan after all!!
                

                                                                                                                      Sunday, February 28, 2010