Philippians 1:6 - Jesus is Faithful,Loyal and Trustworthy!

Phil.1:6: Jesus is Faithful, Loyal and Trustworthy!

Phil 1:6 (KJV)  Being confident of this very thing, that he
which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of
Jesus Christ:


Phil 1:6 (TLB)  And I am sure that God who began the good work
within you will keep right on helping you grow in his grace until his
task within you is finally finished on that day when Jesus Christ
returns.


The Letter to the Philippians has been called The Epistle of
Joy. [Barclay Commentary]


God is intimately involved in our spiritual growth. The God who
began a good work in us continues it throughout our lifetime and will
finish it when we meet him face to face. God's work 'for' us began when
Christ died on the cross in our place. His work 'in' us began when we
first believed. Now the Holy Spirit lives in us, enabling us to be
more like Christ every day. Paul is describing the process of
Christian growth and maturity that began when we accepted Jesus and
continues until Christ returns. [Life Application SB]


God will keep working even when we are discouraged. Do you
sometimes feel as though you aren't making progress in your spiritual
life? When God starts a project, he completes it! As with the
Philippians, God will help you grow in grace until he has completed his work
in your life. When you are discouraged, remember that God won't
give up on you. He promises to finish the work he has begun. When you
feel incomplete, unfinished, or distressed by your shortcomings,
remember God's promise and provision. Don't let your present condition
rob you of the joy of knowing Christ or keep you from growing closer
to him. [Life Application SB]


We can depend upon God to complete what He started. Our faithful
God will not forget us along the way or grow weary and give up.
[Disciple SB]


There are those who have known the pardoning love of Christ and
who really desire to be children of God, yet they realize that their
character is imperfect, their life faulty, and they are ready to doubt
whether their hearts have been renewed by the Holy Spirit. To such I
would say, Do not draw back in despair. We shall often have to bow
down and weep at the feet of Jesus because of our shortcomings and
mistakes, but we are not to be discouraged. Even if we are overcome by the
enemy, we are not cast off, not forsaken and rejected of God. No;
Christ is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. Said the beloved John, "These things write I unto you, that ye
sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous." 1 John 2:1. And do not forget the words
of Christ, "The Father Himself loveth you." John 16:27. He desires
to restore you to Himself, to see His own purity and holiness
reflected in you. And if you will but yield yourself to Him, He that hath
begun a good work in you will carry it forward to the day of Jesus
Christ. Pray more fervently; believe more fully. As we come to distrust
our own power, let us trust the power of our Redeemer, and we shall
praise Him who is the health of our countenance. SC64-5


My first week in college in Ohio I had an appendix attack, and
an emergency operation. My mom and dad drove down to see me, and
Mother brought me a Bible. Trying to joke, I took it and said, ?I?m not
that sick!?

Sometimes even we Christians think of prayer or other religious
exercises as a last resort kind of thing. We pray when we?re desperate, or
when we are fearful for others. But Paul prayed out of joy, and with
supreme confidence. There was no clear and present danger to the
Philippian church. These believers had worked in partnership with Paul in
spreading the Gospel from the first. And Paul had total confidence that
the work God began in their lives would be carried on to completion,
?until the day of Christ Jesus.?

We can have this same confidence when we pray for one another.
God won?t abandon any of His own. Our prayers aren?t a last-ditch
effort to keep them from sliding over the edge of some spiritual
precipice. We pray for other Christians with joy, and with total confidence
that God is at work in their lives.

Why then do we pray? We pray as an expression of love. And we
pray because we believe that God in some mysterious way uses our
prayers to enrich that good work He is committed to do in His children?s
lives. [The 365-Day Devotional Commentary]


George Raindrop in his book No Common Task tells how a nurse
once taught a man to pray and in doing so changed his whole life,
until a dull, disgruntled and dispirited creature became a man of joy.
Much of the nurse's work was done with her hands, and she used her
hands as a scheme of prayer. Each finger stood for someone. Her thumb
was nearest to her, and it reminded her to pray for those who were
closest to her. The second finger was used for pointing and it stood for
all her teachers in school and in the hospital. The third finger was
the tallest and it stood for the V.I.P.s, the leaders in every
sphere of life. The fourth finger was the weakest, as every pianist
knows, and it stood for those who were in trouble and in pain.  The
little finger was the smallest and the least important and to the nurse
it stood for herself. [Barclay Commentary]


This promise relates to the spiritual life that Jesus develops
in us as we turn our lives over to Him, but we can find a
biological truth here also. Who better to complete the re-creation of our
character than the Creator Himself - the One who made us in the first
place?

Your external features and the functions of your internal organs
are controlled by the set of coded messages, or genes, that you
inherited from your parents. Genes make up the 23 pairs of chromosomes
that exist in the nucleus of almost every cell in your body.

Some genes work only in specific parts of your body. Through a
highly complex process that we are only beginning to understand, the
genes that regulate the growth and operation of different parts of
your body are activated only in those parts. For example, certain
genes produce your liver, and other genes cause it to function. And
even though those liver genes appear in almost every other cell in
your body, they do their work only in your liver. You have liver
genes in your big toe, and you have big-toe genes in your liver. But
the genes function only in the area where they are supposed to work.
If the big-toe genes did their work throughout your body, you would
be nothing but a collection of big toes.

A gene that operates in every cell in your body is the "on/off"
switch gene. Discovered by scientists at Stanford University, this is
the gene that switches on when you hurt yourself, such as when you
cut your finger. New tissue, including skin with your own personal
fingerprint, must form to replace the damaged tissue. Scientists have
cataloged this gene as number 33-kDA. As a number, it doesn't mean much,
but as an important element of your body, it is a matter of life and
death. The Creator put within Adam and Eve gene number 33-kDA, and
every human being since that time has received an exact copy of
33-kDA.

If Jesus can provide such an amazing way for our bodies to fix
themselves when we get hurt, He certainly can complete the spiritual work
that He has begun in us. The difference, in this case, however, is
that the "on/off" switch is our power of choice. We decide?and He
does the rest. [Nature Quest by J & P Tucker]


The Lord is a perfect workman. He completes every work to which
He sets His hand, if only the human material permits Him to do so.
Furthermore, the product of such workmanship will be perfect. And He does not
weary in well-doing. [SDA Commentary]


God, if men would allow it, would complete the work that he does
in human lives. [College Press NIV Commentary]


What God begins, He completes.  This should bring comfort to
each one who knows Jesus Christ personally.  He began the "good work"
in you when the Holy Spirit moved upon your mind to draw you to
Jesus; He softened your heart and ordered circumstances for your
conversion.  In the very same way that He orchestrated your new birth, He
also now directs your new life.  Oh, don't misunderstand; you have a
part to play.  It is a responsive one.  He calls, you follow; He
directs, you obey.  And so the "good work" in you is being carried on!
Are you following?  Are you obeying?  Today is a great day to press
on in both these areas!  [In His Time; Walk With Wisdom]


Love is always the way to knowledge. If we love any subject, we
want to learn more about it; if we love any person, we want to learn
more about him; if we love Jesus, we will want to learn more about
him and about his truth.  Love is always sensitive to the mind and
the heart of the one it loves. If it blindly and blunderingly hurts
the feelings of the one it claims to love, it is not love at all. If
we really love Jesus, we will be sensitive to his will and his
desires; the more we love him; the more we will instinctively shrink from
what is evil and desire what is right. [Barclay Commentary]


There is a picture here in the Greek which it is not possible to
reproduce in translation.  The point is that the words Paul uses for to
begin (enarchesthai, 1728-GSN) and for to complete (epitelein,
2005-GSN) are technical terms for the beginning and the ending of a
sacrifice?..

Paul's whole sentence moves in an atmosphere of sacrifice.
Paul is seeing the life of every Christian as a sacrifice ready
to be offered to Jesus Christ. It is the same picture as he draws
when he urges the Romans to present their bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God (Rom 12:1).

On the day when Christ comes it will be like the coming of a
king. On such a day the king's subjects are bound to present him with
gifts to mark their loyalty and to show their love. The only gift
Jesus Christ desires from us is ourselves. So, then, a man's supreme
task is to make his life fit to offer to him. Only the grace of God
can enable us to do that. [Barclay Commentary]


Should a man see only popularity, he becomes a mirror,
reflecting whatever needs to be reflected to gain acceptance??. He is
everyone and no one.

Should a man see only power, he becomes a wolf?prowling,
hunting, and stalking the elusive game. Recognition is his prey and
people are his prizes. His quest is endless.... As a result, he who
sees only power is degraded to an animal, an insatiable scavenger,
controlled not by a will from within, but by luring from without.

Should a man see only pleasure, he becomes a carnival
thrill-seeker, alive only in bright lights, wild rides, and titillating
entertainment. With lustful fever he races from ride to ride, satisfying his
insatiable passion for sensations only long enough to look for another....

Seekers of popularity, power, and pleasure. The end result is
the same: painful unfulfillment.

Only in seeking his Maker does a man truly become man. For in
seeing his Creator man catches a glimpse of what he was intended to be.
He who would see his God would then see the reason for death and
the purpose of time. Destiny? Tomorrow? Truth? All are questions
within the reach of the man who knows his source.... (God Came Near by
Max Lucado) [Inspirational SB]


Regardless of circumstances, you can have real joy. Paul noted
that living wholeheartedly for Christ and selflessly for others
brings joy. [Inspirational SB]


TESTIMONIES OF HIS FAITHFULNESS

Son Shine
I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.
Ps. 118:17.

Writhing in agony, flat on my back in a hospital, I felt that
the pain from serious injury was too severe for me to live another
moment.

The auto accident that put me in the hospital occurred one
evening when a lifelong friend was taking me home from a Christian
retreat we had attended that weekend, some 300 miles away. Just three
miles from my home a woman traveling at least 55 miles per hour with
her headlights off slammed into our car, totaling it-and us. My
friend did not survive, and my survival was in question.

It's amazing how a three-second accident can alter priorities so
immediately. Before that, I had been described as the Pollyanna sort, always
happy, carefree, and optimistic. Suddenly survival took center stage.
If you've ever had so much post-trauma pain that one moment you
think you're going to die and the next moment the agony escalates
until you're almost afraid you won't, then you'll know my thinking. To
increase the possibility of my pulling through, I wasn't even told that
Ray had died. They were depending on my will to live.

Today's text urges us to choose life. Because I have a career in
the health field, I know the importance of the will to live. This
God-given trait is not to be used selfishly, but our text tells us why we
should choose to live: it's so we can "declare the works of the Lord."


You certainly blessed me in that hospital years ago, Lord. You
gave me the courage and the will to go on. I am grateful for that.
Now I take this opportunity to declare Your goodness.

Has the "good" gone out of "good morning"? Is the daily grind
overwhelming you at times? Then I invite you to look to Jesus, the author and
finisher of our faith. Cling to Him for dear life. Tell Him exactly how
you feel. Ask Him for strength to go on. You may even need to repeat
today's text every morning until God's Holy Spirit comforts you with
brighter days. Seek the help you need-He will gladly supply it. God can
make your sun shine again. He can do it for you. Let the Son shine
in! --Judy Coulston


It becomes ever more amazing to me as time passes, the '
abundance of life' we have in the Lord.  There are many statements that
were made in this lesson regarding mans' search, his eternal quest
for 'true' peace, happiness, and fullfillment.  And yet in each of
the areas that were mentioned, and in others, the quest is defeated
before it's begun - and mankind remains blind to the futility of his
'own' efforts, seeking yet another 'enlightened' path.

In all the world, the deepest joy, the most serene peace, the
most blissful comfort, and the greatest love I have ever found, rests
simply in the pleasure of 'knowing' God and our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. For the world, my peace of mind,  my 'worrilessness', my
unbridled hope, are beyond their comprehension, and perhaps, abit foolish
and 'unrealistic'.  Where are 'my' plans for success - and I say "in
Him!" Well, how do you hope to achieve this?  And I say, " Through
Him!" Well, how can you follow a plan that you cannot see?  And I say,
" I follow Him!"   What if it fails?  And I say, " He would never
fail me!" How can you be so certain?  And I tell them, " Because I
know my God and He is ever faithful.  I can rely on Him because He
has never and will never let me down!"   But in this world,  the
absolute certainty that comes from those whose faith is rock solid in our
Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior, leaves people temporarily
stunned.  Their minds whirl through all the craziness that forms their
lives, and they cannot begin to imagine how anyone, even a Christian,
could possibly 'mean' what they believe they just heard.   And in
time,  inevitably they will ask again, " Where in all this madness do
you find this peace that rules your life?"   And I smile and tell
them, " His name is Jesus and he saved my life.  Would you like to
meet him?"

I remember well the days I lived in the world, and I know the
pain and distress and hopelessness that people feel.  And every day,
I have to thank our Heavenly Father for saying, " Yes, I'd like to
work with her - she has potential!"   And every day I am humbled by
His generosity for overlooking the person I am as I walk with Him to
become the person He intended me to be.  It is probably the most
wonderful walk I will ever take, on this late, great planet earth, but it
is one for which I will forever be grateful, that He held out His
hand and whispered my name, and held me gently when I cried because I
was afraid.  I couldn't trust anyone then.  He knew that.  I trust
Him completely now - with my life.

[Rita Marie]