Alicea

Q3. (4:7) How does making our requests known to God help build a relationship and trust? What is God's part in the promise of peace We only make our requests and deep needs known to someone we trust isn't going to hurt us or turn on us once we have been open with them, so communicating our needs to God signifies that trust and our relationship deepens. God promises to give us peace when we turn it all over to Him. I had a pastor once who said, if we wait for the promise to come we will be a people of peace.

Q2. (4:6) How is a request in prayer altered by the presence of thanksgiving in the prayer? How does thanksgiving affect our faith as we pray? By having thanksgiving in our prayers we are saying we believe God has heard our request. It is also honoring and respecting God when we express our thanksgiving. Whenever we honor, reverence and respect our God we are worshipping and whenever we worship our faith is reinforced.

Q1. (4:4-5) Is rejoicing in the Lord a feeling or an action? How should you seek to fulfill this command if you don't feel like it? What is the effect of rejoicing? When you rejoice in the Lord you have a feeling of joy; rejoicing is an action; though an inward one, that produces the feeling of joy. I find one way to fulfill this command is to do what the old fashioned song says, Count your many blessings. Also reminding myself of what Christ did for me on Calvary and remembering all the times in the past that God has been there for me. Rejoicing brings joy, and a sense of fellowship with Christ.

Q4. (3:18-21) Why is recognizing and affirming your citizenship and allegiance vital to discipleship? How does it keep us from the temptations outlined in verses 18 and 19? What are the dangers of a church combining and confusing the concepts of temporal patriotism with a Christian's true citizenship? Recognizing our true citizenship to be in heaven keeps our focus and priorities on Christ and the spiritual. It keeps us from temptations because where the mind goes the body follows. I love this country and am thankful that God has chosen to place me here, however God is not an American, or English or French etc. We must not allow our love for our country to become religious in fervor. Love for God and country should not ever be equal or even equally important in our lives.

Q3. (3:17) How can Paul be so bold as to ask others to imitate him? Why are we so hesitant to do this? How does God use imitation in building disciples? Who is likely to imitate you? Paul was sure of his walk with God, he was confident that he had the mind of God and he was sure of his calling in leadership of God's people. I am hesitant to do this because I know all my faults, if I invite people to imitate me they will be looking at me closely, therefore seeing all my "warts" and I wouldn't want them to follow me in areas that I still need to work on. He uses imitation in that we see and recognize in someone the life of Christ being exemplified, we desire to follow the same path. My adult daughter imitates me all the time, and when others ask her how she knows something in the Lord she often tells them I taught her. Most of the time I don't even remember teaching her. It is very humbling and scary.

Q2. (3:14) What is it like to be called upwards by God? Have you ever experienced this? What causes God's call to become dim in our hearing? How can we renew our hearing of his call? What is the content or specifics of this message or summons or call? Being called upwards by God is paradox, in order to go up in God you need to go deeper in Him. For me daily life's busyness dims my hearing. I work in a doctor's office and the pace is so fast and constant that loose conscious touch with the Lord, forget to ask Him before I say or make a decision that I should have stopped for a moment and breathed a quick prayer. I can renew my hearing by feeding my spirit with bible studies like this, reading spiritual books as well as my bible, talking about the Lord with fellow believers, regular worship corporate and individual. 'The content always into revelation of myself and areas to surrender to Him and ways I can be a more service in His kingdom and best of all results in a deeper closeness to Him.

Q1. (3:13) How can the past get in the way of our quest to know Christ? What do you need to "forget" so that you may focus on Christ today and tomorrow? Is there forgiving you need to do so you can grow in Christ? Guilt and remorse about past behavior can keep up from prayer, stud, just seeking the face of Christ. I need to forget when I have not lived up to what I feel the standard of my christian behavior should have been. There is forgiving always to be done and t he hardest one for me to forgive is myself.

Q4. (3:8-10) What does it mean to "know" Christ? Does this mean to have faith? Or to have a personal relationship? Is it possible to have a personal relationship with Christ without faith? Is it possible to have faith without a personal relationship? Where are you on your quest to know Christ? To know Christ means to have an intimate relationship with him. It means to have a personal relationship but the relationship has be begin with faith. I have met some people who have faith that Christ is real and accept what He did on Calvary but they don't seem to have a deeply personal relationship with Christ. In my quest to know Christ I have found the better I know Him the deeper my faith becomes and the deeper my faith becomes the better I know Him. I love Him much more than I did when I first came to Him. I am much more aware of His actual Presence. I can sense His nearness even now as I answer this question. What a wonderful privilege and blessing!!!

Q3. (3:9) How does righteousness obtained through faith differ from righteousness obtained through law observance? How seriously does righteousness by law observance infect your congregation? Society's view of Christianity in general? Why is this concept of justification or righteousness by faith so difficult to grasp? What is obtained by faith is spirit by law self. To society it is all by law because they are not able to discern the spirit. It is difficult to grasp because we are carnal beings.

Q2. (3:2-6) Why isn't Paul merely neutral about his religious pedigree? Why does he consider it loss, dung, an obstacle? In what way could your religious background be an impediment to your faith? Paul was what Jews considered as the impeccable jew, had the best jewish background. Before Christ it controlled his very being, which is why he put such vehemence in his persecution of the Christians. It was dung, an ostacle because it kept him from seeing who Christ was, it kept trying to perform in the flesh what needed to be done in the spirit. If we have so much pride and self identification tied up in our religious background we can be dependent and that as our salvation and it can blind us to truths in God's word. I recently have come out of a situation where many that I counted as brethren stayed in a religious denomination which they admitted freely had become apostate and left the scriptures, but could not bring themselves to leave the denomination they had grown up in.

Q1. (3:2-6) How does "confidence in the flesh" show up in your congregation? Have you ever struggled with it? Our little home church is only 18 months old so we are still forced to be dependent on moment by moment faith. I pray it stays so. We left a denomination that turned its back on scripture and endorsed behavior clearly denounced as an abomination in the the bible. It was painful and we wanted to stay together and thus our little group was started. I have struggled with confidence in the flesh. Years ago I attended a very legaistic church. Holiness was a list of do's and don'ts. Don't wear makeup, don't cut your hair, don't watch tv, etc. etc. Even after I left it took a long time to believe God accepted me if I didn't keep all the rules laid down by that group.

Q4. From what you've read in Philippians so far, what seems to be the Philippian church's chief problem? How does Paul's description of Timothy's character speak to this problem? How does Paul's call to honor men like Epaphroditus speak to this problem? It seems like Paul felt this church needed some mature "fatherly" type of support. They sound to me as genuine, loving believers but somewhat vulnerable and in need of the support of a mature shepherd. Timothy knew how to lay down his own needs and nurture and care for others. Epaphraditus obviously had the same quality as he risked his life for Paul and the gospel but he also had an emotional attachment to the church at Philipi, ie he didn't want them worrying about him.

Q3. (2:22) What is the significance of serving Jesus as a "slave" as opposed to serving him as a preference? What does it say about the quality of our service? Of our commitment? What is wrong with leaders who serve out of preference? When we serve as a slave we serve because we simply have no choice. On one hand that sounds negative, but when it come to Christ not so, because we become that slave out of choice. When our love for Him so envelopes us that we cannot bear to be without Him then we become His slave. We are serving him out of love and not out of what we can get out of it. That is when we serve out of preference. When service is given out of preference it is given out of self and to feed self and one's ego not to serve the body of Christ.

Q2. (2:22) Who has come alongside you to teach you? What potential leader in your church needs someone to come alongside them? Do you have a person or two that you are mentoring "as a son with a father" or "a daughter with a mother"? One of the most profound teachers I have had I never met and that is Corrie Ten Boom. In person God sent John and Anneke Mol. I see Gary as a potential leader that the men in our church are coming alongside very nicely. I have a lady that God has blessed me with in mentoring but right now I have three children in the church. Two who have been taken from a drug abusing mother and have no fathers, and one who has a wonderful single mom but absentee father.

Q1. (2:19-21) Why was Timothy's selfless concern so rare among church leaders? Rather than pointing the finger at others in your church, consider yourself. What things has Jesus had to deal with in your life that has helped you to become genuinely selfless and focused on the concerns of others? How has he refined you? (Of course, he is still at work in us!) I think it was rare then as it is today because of our human tendancy of selfishness. I have caught myself being selfish without intending to or realizing it. I found myself enjoying the accolades of others about what I did "for Christ". I realized I did a lot of things because I thought they were the right thing to do but God didn't really call me to do them. The Lord showed me that the scripture that speaks of laying down one' s life for another isn't just dealing with one's physical life, but our life within. It means doing something for someone you don't really want to do because they need it done, sometimes little things like visiting with someone you don't find very interesting, or looking after someone's child for them when you really don't want to etc.

Q4. (2:17) You have gone through struggles and obstacles to your faith. If you were to look at your sufferings as a "drink offering" poured out before God, how does that honor God? How does that bring value to your struggles? I have never looked at my struggles in that light before. I went through them determined to keep my eyes on Christ but since they didn't seem that they were specifically related to by Christianity, ie unemployment was because of Christianity but because the company cut back employees, marriage problems weren't because of my faith etc. However I was determined to honor God in them by acting the way I believed Christ would have me act, I suppose that is honoring God. All my struggles have had value in that they have been faith building in that He has always seen me through them.

Q3. (2:16) In what sense are we Christians to "hold fast" the Word of Life? In what sense are we to "hold forth" this Word of Life? How does this relate to the purpose of the church? Hold fast means to hold it tightly to you and do not let it go. To obey and live what the Word tells us to do. Hold forth means to hold something out, to offer something. We are to extend ourselves and share the gospel. This relates to the purpose of the church because Christ told us to go in into all the world and preach the gospel. I believe we are to do that in word and deed.

Q1. (2:12-13). In this passage, what does it mean to "work out your own salvation"? Is this referring to salvation from sin? If not, what kind of salvation is it referring to? It is referring to working out our day to day walk with the Lord, growing in our spirituality, and fruit of the Spirit.

Q4. (2:9-11) We know we're supposed to humble ourselves like Jesus did. But how can we know whether or not God will exalt us? Why do we get impatient with this? What does our impatience sometimes lead to? The point is to himble ourselves whether or not God exalts us, if we humble ourselves so we can be exalted, we are not truly humbling ourselves. If we get impatient, once again we are not truly humbling ourselves, which can lead to anger, resentment, pride, rebellion, and self promotion.

Q3. (2:7-8) Was Jesus really a human being or only pretending to be one? What do these verses teach? What difference does it really make whether or not Jesus was human? Jesus was fully human. The verses teach He was made in himan likeness and took the nature of a servent though God. Scripture teaches us that Jesus understands our temptations and trials becasue he was fully human and experienced them the same as we do. Therefore when we go to Him in prayer we go to someone we know fully understands what we are experiencing.

Q1. (2:1-4). To achieve unity in your congregation, why is humility necessary? Can you give an example of how lack of humility caused a division in your church? What are you doing to bring unity in your church? Humility is necessary in order to show true love to each other and to put others needs ahead of your own. In thirty plus years I have seen division caused by lack of humility numerous times. I pray and ask God to show me other's needs and ask Him to empower me with His love for others that I may put myself aside and serve others with a cheerful and loving spirit.

Q3. (1:20-21) How can fear keep us from being a bold witness? Why does fear of people bind our tongues? How does "losing our life" for Christ's sake actually give us an abundant life? What fear is keeping your from clear witness? In this country not many of us are asked to loose our actual physical life as part of our witness, but fear of rejection is a powerful fear. The political climate in North America is full of animousity toward Christianity. These voices are vocal and scathing and are intimidating. Here we "lose our life" by losing our social accepatability. However as Christians if we remain silent about Our Lord we are of all people most miserable because we know we are letting down the One who loves us the most. Joy and peace in the Holy Spirit comes as a natural fruit when we set about to please our Creator.

Q2. (1:18b-19) Why is our ability to rejoice so dependent upon our faith that God is in control, working even in the midst of difficulty? What must you believe in order to be able to rejoice in the midst of problems? What is your basis for believing that? If you look only at our circumstances they often appear hopeless and discouragement quickly follows but if we believe that God is in control we have peace and hope and can therefore rejoice. We must believe in the love of God that He wants only the best for us and we must believe that the scriptures that say so are true and are God's actual words to us. Faith in the Unseen is the basis for believing both in God and in His Word.

Q1. (1:12-14) From the standpoint of witness to others, you are much more credible when you are undergoing personal struggles, stress, and problems. Why is this so? Why was Paul's witness so powerful? What personal struggle are you going through that could enhance your testimony if you handled it right? You are more credible when going or have gone through personal struggles because you can personally attain to what God has done. Paul came from being an Jewish unbeliever to a preacher of Christ who endured much hardship to do so. Right now I am having a difficult time at work with being overworked. There is a lot of stress and pressure. If I can keep my patience and temper and "stay sweet" it would enhance my testimony because I know that I can only do this with the help and control of the Holy Spirit.

Q4. (1:9-11) Why does Paul ask God to give the Philippian Christians discernment? What will be the result of discernment in their lives? How does selfishness cloud discernment? How is the good the enemy of the best in our lives? We need discernment in our Christian walk in order to be mature Christians, we must make decisions in our daily lives what to accept, what to do, what to believe etc. Without discernment we will to astray and accept things that are either not the best for us or will lead us into frank error. Self - ness clouds discernment because it looks through the eyes of flesh and what the person wants for themselves. It causes a blindness to God's best for us. Good is especially the enemy of best because of its appearance. It appears good and so therefore can be interpreted as right. It can lead to mediocrity and lukewarmness, both enemies of our growth in Christ.