Completing Joy

Establishing a self-identity has become a social entitlement in the third decade of the Twenty-first Century. ‘You can be whatever you want to be’ has become the mantra of a generation who believes they can be whomever they identify themselves to be. While this began back in the first half of the last century with the concept that mental belief precedes achievement in business, it was then accepted by psychologists and educators for the encouragement of self-worth through positive reinforcement. What began as ‘hard work, applying one’s self’ as the means to overcome obstacles, became simply thinking was enough to entitle the person to have what they believed about themselves. The Apostle Paul writes to the Philippian disciples about a different mindset:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ¹

Paul says the focus is on the life in the image of Jesus, to live out the same values found in Christ rather than created by our own imaginations. ‘Do nothing from selfish ambition’ ‘but in humility count others more significant’ is not a denunciation of the LORD’s work in each of His disciples but a freeing up so each can serve others according to God’s desires and not for our own self-fulfillment. Then Paul expands the specifics of how vastly different than self-aggrandizing this mindset and the resulting lifestyle is in Jesus by reminding the disciples of how Jesus lived with the LORD’s values above all else:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ²

Just as Jesus submitted Himself to the purposes of the LORD, we also are to submit and live our life patterned with the same ‘laying down’ selflessness as Jesus, allowing God to do His life through ours. We are what He identifies us to be. In Him. He is our Joy!