Thursday, August 16, 2012

Bible Verse of the Week

I used to write a Bible verse or passage into my assignment notebook each week starting Junior year. By doing this, I got the chance to study my Bible versus putting it off until church on Sundays and Wednesdays (very common during the school year). And during the day, my weekly Bible verse would remind me of who I am and it would encourage me to be confident in Christ in a place where it isn't always easy to proclaim His name. So....school starts next Wednesday (eek!) but I thought I'd start early on my Weekly Bible Verse/Passage. 

This week is Philippians 3:8-11.
Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

I know I'm obsessed with the book of Philippians, but I have reason! My freshman or sophomore year after marching band season ended, I attended the last sessions of a Bible study with my dad. And guess what that bible study was on? Philippians! It's only got 4 chapters but those 4 chapters are so beautiful! I'm not trying to put down other books of the Bible, it's just that I've only studied a few books in depth. Maybe one day I will get to see the beauty of the Bible in its entirety, but for now my vision is narrowed down to Philippians. 
Anyways, during the study someone pointed out this passage. She was in awe of these verses and so was everyone else. She recommended we memorize the verses and I think the next time we saw her in church, she handed out a copy of the verses on a 3x5? glossy sheet. To this day it's taped on my closet door. The next study we had, she asked if anyone memorized the Phil. 3:8-11. The only ones to have memorized it were a young lady and I because, quite frankly, most of the people in the group were a bit aged. She memorized the verses in a Bible version different from the KJV so I was the only one to recite the verses. The group probably said more of the verses to help me than I had recited, but I did have it memorized. 
I was not saved then so the words didn't really have meaning to me. But, now I am saved and I understand why those verses had everyone in awe; those verses are a descriptor of every believer. We have nothing compared to the righteousness of Christ. Though to man and religion we may seem like we got it going on, as Paul puts it, it's dung! Isaiah 64:6 calls our righteousness filthy rags! With this in mind, us believers see our need for Christ and we look to the cross in faith that He has taken on our sin and imputed HIS righteousness onto us. This faith does count as righteousness, but even our faith comes from God (Phil. 1:6). We know Christ as our Savior, we died to our old self and were resurrected into a new life in Him, we know His sufferings because we are not of this world. Now we hope to be risen again. It's the whole package, our life story in a nutshell!
Another verse that ties in with all of this would be Eph. 2:8-9. We are saved BY grace through faith, not by works through willpower. We are sinners and, most likely, always will be, which is why we need grace and why we need to trust in the redemptive work Christ fulfilled through His death and resurrection. Besides, I prefer God's grace. I used to strive for forgiveness through empty promises and works~which always failed. I really wouldn't have God's plan of salvation any other way.

Your Sister in Christ,
Elizabeth

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