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If we want the peace of God to guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4.7), it is our responsibility to enroll His services. We could always take our chances with a lesser service, but why would we; why not go to the very best?

Continuing from yesterday, there are four conditions to accepting God’s mental sentinel. Condition 1 is "…Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4.4). Condition 2 is to "…Let your gentleness be know to all men." (Philippians 4.5). Conditions 3,4 are as noted below.

“Be anxious for nothing…” (Philippians 4.6a). Paul here echoes the Lord Jesus’ counsel from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said quite succinctly, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’” (Matthew 6.25-31).

God’s fourth condition for having the mental and emotional peace which only He can give is this: “In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God…” (Philippians 4.6b). In practical terms, Paul advised the Philippians to stop worrying and start praying! Their worry could avail nothing; prayer could avail any and everything that is within God’s will! As we sometimes say, the choice seems like a no-brainer! Yet day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, we go through life burdened down with the cares of this world and acting as if everything depends on us! God says just the opposite. The truly important things are things that God and God alone controls; the things within our prevue are limited indeed and when all is said and done have almost no impact on the things of true worth!

Allowing the peace of God to guard our hearts and minds is a choice; it is not a mandate and it does not happen unless and until we decide that we want it to happen. God makes provisions for us to have this marvelous gift, but like so many other of His blessings, whether or not we accept His offer is entirely up to us.

Death is a perennial enemy of humanity. Yet many, many saints of God have felt death’s chilly hand with little or no discomfort of mind or spirit. Paul looked forward to the day when he could rid himself of the robes of flesh and exchange them for robes of white (see Philippians 1.21-26). That is allowing the peace of God to guard one’s heart and mind!

Questions:

1. How much of our burden is our heavenly Father willing to bear?

2. How much of our burden are we willing to allow our heavenly Father to bear for us?

3. What would it mean to the world if everyone acted in harmony with the four conditions to mental outlined in Philippians 4.4-7?

4. Why do you think Paul included the giving of thanks along with the favors that we so frequently ask of God? If you had to guess, what ratio do you suppose thanksgiving has in prayer as compared to requests for help or special favors?

"Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life" from Tom Kelley

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