"Have the Attitude of Christ"

So on Sunday after church we had our bi-weekly Eunuch class! It started back in November I believe and was intended to be a 6week course. I however missed 2 weeks, one of which was the class right before this past Sunday. And what do you know, I walk into class and they begin to discuss the 'homework' that I obviously did not do because I knew nothing about it. Sigh! What an embarrassing situation. In all honesty it brought me back to my school days where I didn't have answers for questions because I didn't understand. Instead of staying in that place I participated the best I could while in class. In addition I made it my mission this week to do the homework and do it thoroughly. What was the homework you ask? To read Philippians 2 and to be ready to discuss it at the next class. The profound understanding and deep clarity into God's heart that I found in this Chapter is simply amazing! 

By now, if you follow me regularly, you should know that I absolutely love to break things down. My Pastor always tells us to live by definition. And since we are suppose to live by the word of God, if we study without ever defining things or taking time to break down the scripture we may never get the full understanding of what a certain verse means. In the New Living Translation(NLT) version Philippians 2 is titled "Have the Attitude of Christ". WHOA! That right there grabbed my attention and let me know that if I'm not living out what I'm about to read then I need to reevaluate some things. 

Have the Attitude of Christ

1-5 "Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. Don't be selfish; don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had."

Now if that "wowed" you just wait a minute, thats just the beginning. The underlined words are the words that I defined and broke down. By doing that I gained a whole new view on this life and where I'm at and where I need to strive to go. Below are the definitions and synonyms of each.

~Encouragement: The act of encouraging. Assistance, cheer, comfort, confidence, faith, inspiration, optimism, reassurance, reward, aid, favor, helpfulness, hope, promotion, supporting, trust, urging, consoling, reassuring.

~Comfort: To soothe, console or reassure; bring cheer to. Contentment, enjoyment, happiness, luxury, pleasure, relaxation, satisfaction, abundance, gratification, peacefulness, plenty, rest, restfulness, sufficiency. 

~ Tender: Soft or delicate in substance; not hard or rough. Sensitive, childlike, vulnerable, youthful, gentle, soft, thoughtful, touching, compassionate, forgiving, kind, yielding, charitable, considerate, merciful, sympathetic, tenderhearted. 

~Compassionate: having or showing compassion. Charitable, humane, merciful, sympathetic, understanding, humanitarian.

Now what I do is I replace the word with one of the synonyms and I continue to replace it until I really understand the verse. Below are some examples.

Encouragement:

1. Is there any comfort from belonging to Christ?

2. Is there any optimism from belonging to Christ?

3. Is there any reward, favor or hope from belonging to Christ?

Comfort:

1. Any contentment, enjoyment, or happiness from his love?

2. Any peacefulness, rest or satisfaction from his love?

3. Any sufficiency from his love?

Tender and Compassion:

1. Are your hearts sensitive and sympathetic?

2. Are your hearts thoughtful, yielding and charitable?

3. Are your hearts forgiving, merciful and understanding?

In Eunuch class we spoke on this portion of the chapter as well as the part about putting others ahead of yourself. What really caught my attention is my teacher said "if the answer is yes, then live on that"! So if you can find any encouragement, comfort, optimism or hope in belonging to Christ then hold onto that. If you can find any comfort, enjoyment, happiness, rest or satisfaction from his love then hold onto it. Really what I believe she was saying is that if you can find these things in Him or His word grab hold to it and live on that. Allow that to be your reason for holding on or your reminder when things get rough. If you grab hold to it and remind yourself of it, when tough times come you will be able to stand strong on what you know to be true. So I ask you, do you "have the attitude of Christ"? 

Until next time, 

Kaitlyn