Standing Together: To encourage each other to live godly lives.

Philippians 1:27-30

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

Paul starts these verses by calling the Philippians to live a life worthy of the gospel. If they claim to be God's people they need to reflect that claim by living as his people. We are God's representation on earth. We are being watched, and what we do gives an impression (whether true or false) of who God is to those who see us.

One way to live rightly as one of God's people is to work with other Christians to do it. When we try to do something on our own, it's hard because we only have our own ideas and thoughts to go off. We have no one to keep us on the right track, no one to challenge our ideas, no one to show us when we are subtly justifying to ourselves something that is wrong.

That's one reason that we have to stand together as God's people: We need to stand together so we can help each other to live a life that reflects who our God and saviour is. We need help to be holy as God is holy. Now obviously it is only by God's grace and the work of the Holy Spirit that we can be saved and it is only by him that we can be learning to obey him better. And our 'good deeds' certainly don't make us more worthy of salvation. They are simply a response of love to his fantastic grace in saving us when we didn't deserve it.

It's much easier to obey God when you're doing it with other Christians - seeing their example and following it, encouraging each other to resist sin and being able to talk about particular temptations you have and pray for each other. Part of working together is being selfless and humble. We need to work with other Christians to help ourselves obey God, but we also need to work with them in order to benefit them. We can't be self-obsessed - that's something we're bad at in our western culture.

We weren't created to serve God alone. Even in the garden God gave Adam a partner - Eve. If Adam needed a companion when he was perfect, how much more do we need to help each other when it's a struggle to obey God?

So I have two questions for you: Firstly, How are you going at obeying God? And secondly, are you spending time with other Christians being real and honest with them? Are you looking to help them to live for God, while also humbly looking for their help in your own life?

This post was first posted on my new blog: Rock and Refuge