Philippians 4:8-9
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
This passage is very straight forward. It is easy to understand but difficult to put into practice. It's easy to think that we know what is true, noble, pure, etc., but according to whose standards? Do we determine something to be pure according to God's standards or our own? We must know God's standards in order to know the things that are excellent and praiseworthy. Without knowing His standards, we could fall into the danger or thinking something is right or pure when in reality it's the total opposite. Once we can truly live a life according to God's standards, God's peace will be with us. We have the capability of living a much more joyful and peaceful life if we could take what we receive from God and put it into practice.
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2 comments:
Thank you Esther for your thoughtful reflection on the today's reading. V8 reminds us that how much one's thought influence one's life. whatever people occupy their own mind relect on their speech and action. It starts from your mind. Paul is urging Christians occupy our thoughts with what he listed in verse 8 so that we may pursue a life of moral and spiritual excellence.
thanks esther for your insightful reflection. i think your comments about not knowing what is right and true apart from the light of God's Word are absolutely right on. i also agree with kwijung's comment of how greatly we are influenced by our thought lives. when i was obsessed for a time with online scrabble i would spend a lot of my waking moments thinking of words with Q, Z, or X! our thought lives reveal a lot about who we are and what our priorities are. if we want to reflect on "whatever is true, whatever is right, whatever is noble, whatever is lovely-we should think of Jesus Christ much more than we do. Only in doing so we will be able to "imitate paul's example and to put into practice what we have seen him do."
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