It’s as if God puts soldiers and sentries around your feelings and thoughts. You will know God heard your prayer, not necessarily because the problem is solved, but because of the peace that God gives you. In other words, you’ll experience calm in the midst of chaos. When you pray as instructed in 4:6, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard in Christ Jesus. Offering thanks is a demonstration of faith in God’s goodness and provision despite what you see. Give thanks, not for the problem itself, but for the God you are inviting into your specific problem. God wants us to make requests with thanksgiving. But thinking of it in those terms causes us to miss how prayer works. Prayer can often feel frustrating-like when you go to a soda machine, put in your money, punch the button, and nothing comes out. To deal with anxiety, make sure your petitions are precise.

A moment in which you are plagued by worry is not the time for one of those general prayers for God to bless the world. But the more you pray, the less you worry. The sobering truth is that the more you worry, the less you pray. It seeks to draw resources from the invisible spiritual realm into visible, physical reality. Prayer is relational communication with God. 4:6 – Do not be anxious about anythingĮvery time we begin to worry, we should see that as a call from God telling us that it’s time to pray. If we refuse to rejoice and instead complain, we can make the very near God feel very far off indeed. Rather, we embrace a good attitude because we know the Lord is near. Being gracious means we don’t use our ministries to be vindictive or hateful when things aren’t going well. In other words, don’t spread unhappiness to others. 4:5 – Let your reasonableness be known to everyone We must choose to rejoice in order to experience the joy God promises us. This keeps you on an emotional roller coaster Biblical joy, by contrast, has to do with stability and celebration on the inside regardless of circumstances on the outside. So, if things are going in an upward direction in life, you feel up, but if things are going down, you feel down. The difference between joy and secular happiness is that the latter depends on what happens it is circumstantially driven. In the Bible, the word joy is a celebration term. Worldly happiness is not the same as godly happiness. And yet the path to joy is to actually choose to rejoice, so Paul tells them to rejoice in the Lord always.

From a human perspective, it doesn’t make sense. The church faces opposition within and without, yet here is Paul, writing a letter about joy and telling the Philippians to rejoice. 9Do what you have learned and received and heard from me, and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.ĨFinally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable-if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy-dwell on these things. 6Do not worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your graciousness be known to everyone.

To help us get the most out of this passage, let’s take a look at notes from the Tony Evans Study Bible.ĤRejoice in the Lord always. When we pattern our lives from the following verses in Philippians, we encounter the peace of God and the God of peace. What does it mean to think and act like a Christian? The key is to have a Kingdom Mindset – a way of thinking that recognizes God’s hand on your life.

My kingdom for the princess 4 4.9