The Perfect Church

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE PHILIPPIANS

THE PERFECT CHURCH

Phil 2:1-4

2:1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

NIV

Why would we not have encouragement from being united with Christ? Of course, it appears Paul might have been using a little sarcasm here. In other words, Paul was saying then because you have encouragement, comfort, fellowship, tenderness, and compassion, then be like-minded. Because we are united with Christ, we are tremendously encouraged because we have eternal life. How is that not an encouragement? How could we walk around with our continence all stooped over, looking sad and forlorn when we know death is only the beginning of life and we are going to be in the most glorious place every prepared for us by Jesus. No, we should be walking around leaping and jumping and praising God for we were once crippled and blind, but now we have been completely healed. Jesus gives us a comfort the world cannot. It is much like the peace he gives not as the world gives, but his peace, his comfort, his consolation. So then there should be no reason we live in discomfort and we are not thinking about physical discomfort, but rather an emotional and spiritual discomfort. Our mind and heart should be in comfort because he does love us. As far as having fellowship with the Spirit it would seem almost natural as he dwells, or lives within us. Sometimes it seems difficult to comprehend the Spirit lives within every believer if he is one Spirit. Yet, he is God who is omnipresence. He is not limited to one place in time or space. So he can and does live within each of us and therefore it is the most natural thing to be in fellowship with him. Of course, it is also possible for us to squelch his work in our lives and thus not be in koinoonia, partnership with the Spirit. But because we are, he influences our lives and thus we exhibit this tenderness and compassion. Paul tells them if they are like that, it then would make his joy complete if they were like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. All this sounds like the perfect church. A place where no one does anything out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility considers others better than ourselves. The perfect church includes each of us looking to the interest of others as much as we look to our own interests. Does this perfect church exist? What we have to consider here is to not see all this in view of whether everyone else lives like this, but that if the church is ever going to be perfect, in the sense of living as this scripture suggests, it has to start with us.