Let each of you look
not to your own interests,
but to the interests of others.
How do we spell "joy"? You've heard this, right? Jesus-Others-You.
Today's verse obviously focuses on the latter half of this formula - others before you.
But it's easier to say and harder to do, isn't it?
In one sense, most of us would rather serve than be served. And that's our best self. That's who we are when we're being intentional. But most hours of most days most of us are thinking mostly of ourselves. Not purely selfishly ... just reflexively.
So how do we reorient our thinking and start spelling JOY instead of YOJ. The secret? Look at the next verse! "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus."
We don't get JOY by doing life our way, but by doing life in Jesus' way ... and it comes by prioritizing our relationship with the Father and by selflessly thinking more of others.
In Christ's Love,
a guy who knows that one
of the most powerful passages
we can memorize starts
with Philippians 2:5 ...
Let the same mind be in you
that is in Christ Jesus, who
though he was in the form of God
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself and became
obedient to the point of death
- even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
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