IAS PEACE: KEEP YOUR MIND STAYED on HIM

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. ⁹ Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.  Phil. 4:8-9 NLT

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.  Phil. 4:8-9 MSG

Am I the only kid that liked playing with magnifying glasses?  Getting the opportunity to make something seemingly insignificant and small, bigger if only for an illusion.  Oh how when we magnify things we can see details that we never recognized existed.  We can see the eyes on an ant, or how our skin folds (ok some of us you can see that without a magnifying glass...lol) or remember those microscopic pictures that when you zoom out it's a block of concrete, but it looked like your were on the moon.    Also remember setting leaves or things on fire when you used a magnifying glass with the combination of "focused" light the destruction it could cause?

Paul while sitting in jail, who had every right to be found complaining about his present condition, opted to keep His mind stayed on, focused on encouraging others and on Jesus.   In these verses he tries to give the people of Philippi who were hard-workers, and aware of the stresses of their culture something to ease their minds.....no it wasn't a glass of wine, or a drug...it was the WORD of GOD instructing them to FIX THEIR THOUGHTS on...................   Cause like with a magnifying glass whatever you focus on, fix your eyes or thoughts on....increases in size.    If you think of the one reason, or many reasons you hate or dislike _______________________  then those things get bigger.   When in essence they may be microscopic, harmless, or really insignificant in the big picture....focusing on such will cause us to feel defenseless, fearful, or overwhelmed.   Take for instance looking on a microscope for too long, focusing on the amount of bacteria and such can cause one to become a germ-aphobe. If a spouse focuses on the wrong thing or person too long an affair is easy to happen.   If an employee focuses on what they don't like about their job instead of praising God for it, they'll end up unemployed.   But if we focus on the TRUTH of Scripture.  If we focus on HONORING our  FATHER through doing what is RIGHT by them, how PURE our LOVE would remain for one another.   So much so that those without this would ADMIRE the community we have PRAISE GOD, not CURSE Him.



So today, instead of focusing on what or who you don't like, put into practice this truth to focus on the EXCELLENT things of GOD, His Word, His Son....not on the debt ceiling*, Affordable Health care * (Obamacare for some), not your discontent in or with_______________________________ and watch how much more PEACEFUL you are in Heart/Mind.   Trust me...if you choose to focus on anything other than what GOD told us to focus on, your day will go sideways!  LGLP247



** I know we need to be educated, informed, vigilant and aware of what's going on around us, and I am...and I'm not suggesting we close our eyes to, or ignore some of these issues....I am though asking your to consider why the WORD would instruct us on what to focus on to have peace, and it's not the hot topics of our culture.