You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not a failure. 2 You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition. 3 So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery.
4 For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. 5 Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends just to get your money! 6 As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else.
7 As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. 8 We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too.
9 Don’t you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you. 10 You yourselves are our witnesses—and so is God—that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. 11 And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. 12 We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory.
Tori's Comments:
"God gave us the courage" I need to trust He will provide for my needs.
"Our purpose is to please God and not people." This is so easy to forget. Human praise? Who needs it? My Father, the creator of stars and fireflies, loves me. Me. That's enough.
We're supposed to share both the Good News AND our lives. I think sometimes this gets wonky. Just going to Sunday service isn't sharing your life. Celebrating our victory, encouraging each other in Christ, selflessly listening to each other.... that's sharing our life. It's not mine anymore, anyways. My life belongs to Christ now.
Terrie's Comments:
"God gave us courage" I am noticing over and over again how much God provides for us. We can have courage an boldness in the face of opposition while telling people about Jesus because God gives us courage to do so.
"Our purpose is to please God not people" I LOVE this... that we know what our purpose is and it is not impossible because of what Jesus did it is almost impossible not to please God when we place our faith in Jesus Christ as our savior and Lord.
When you love people you share the good news of Jesus Christ with them as well as your own lives with them.
When we are mentoring we plead, encourage and urge people to live their lives the way God would consider worthy. Because God has called us to share in his Kingdom and His glory!
This is one day when I am glad that I discipline myself to write my comments on the passage before reading Tori's comments. We both picked out the same parts of the passage to comment on... That is awesome :-)
Take our personal comments or leave them. We would love to hear what stood out to you about today`s passage and how it encouraged you. Tell us in the comments below!
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Please keep all comments respectful. We want to remember that each of us is at a different place in our walk with God. This is a place for us to share openly about what has been revealed to us as we open up Gods word and to learn from others. Please take every opportunity possible to build each other up in love :-)