Bible Verse of the Day Tuesday October 17th, 2023

Philippians 1:20 I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

Paul wrote this letter to the Philippians while under house arrest in Rome, not knowing if he would live or die. However, whatever the outcome, his mission was to see that people would exalt Christ Jesus. If that could come about through someone incarcerated in 1st-century Rome, what about our lives today? Paul concentrated on one thing, not whether he might live or die, but that the world would exalt Christ Jesus. This devotion and surrender to Christ Jesus were the focus of Paul's entire existence, he was always looking to reject anything that might even marginally reflect poorly on our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus.

The capacity to focus or contemplate on one thing for long periods eludes many people. Therefore, some people must improve their jobs, education, and other endeavors. A successful Christian life will always take great focus and concentration. A player on a football team needs to focus on what the quarterback is saying during the huddle so that the upcoming play will succeed. The same goes for Christians; the ones whose only focus is on Christ Jesus will know the victory and the fullness of the life promised to us by Christ Jesus (John 10:10).

We often find ourselves in a situation like Paul's, not that we are prisoners to any governmental agency, but Satan has us bound up through his lies and trickery. When that happens, we feel trapped and unable to focus only on one thing: escaping the dark valley we find ourselves in. We should keep the faith because the hope and expectancy from the Word of God is that He can use us regardless of our circumstances. Many Christians today focus on personal pleasure, obtaining material wealth, and seeking fame, fortune, and power. Those focused on these worldly matters find it challenging to focus on Christ Jesus (Matthew 6:24).

Our focus and concentration should be on the eternal, not the temporal; everything in this life is short-lived. There will come a day when all the fame, fortune, and power we have focused on obtaining will be unimportant. The only thing that will matter then is what we have done for Christ Jesus and the prolongation of His Gospel to a lost, dark, and dying world.

The question is: Do we want to make our life a reflector for the Light of Christ Jesus so that the world will exalt him through our work for Him? Doing this will attract people to Christ Jesus; they will want to surrender their lives to Him and accept Him as their Lord and Savior. The greatest thing we can do for any human being is to introduce them to Christ Jesus. When we stand at the Judgment seat of Christ, He will not judge us by our material or political standing, but by what we have done for Christ in this life (Romans 14:10-12; 2 Corinthians 5:10)