Word title: The power of life to rejoice in the power of resurrection
Apostle Paul exhorts outside Saints to rejoice in the Lord while he was in prison. At that time, Christians are urged not to lose their lives of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, even when there was too little in the environment to rejoice. His message is also what the Holy Spirit gives Christians living in the end times today.
They were severely persecuted by the Jews at that time. When Apostle Paul spoke of them, they were doglike and wicked workers, because they were without the Holy Spirit. Therefore, they were ones that trusted in the flesh. Therefore, they could not worship God in the spirit and seek joy in Christ Jesus. It is the same as today’s carnal Christians, who are not born again by the Holy Spirit. But they believe themselves that they truly worship God in spirit and truth.
Apostle Paul confessed that what he most ennobles is the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and has confessed that he had the life of loss by throwing away all that is gain to him in his life. This is because all things that were good for him were things that keep him away from the Lord. He confessed to God that God’s righteousness is everything by discarding all his righteousness and only believing in Christ.
Therefore, he confessed that his goal in life is to have fellowship with the saints in the power of Christ’s resurrection:
He was convinced that his soul had already been saved by the regeneration of his spirit into the Holy Spirit. Therefore, he had only one thing: waiting for the resurrection of the body, filling his body with Christ’s suffering and death, hoping for his reward on the day of the resurrection, forgetting all that was behind him, he could look and live a joyful life in Christ. In other words, he always exhorted the Saints to rejoice in the same hope, living their lives to rejoice in the day when Christ appears in the air, in the day of Christ.
Therefore, with this conviction, he exhorted the Saints to live all of their lives making him as an sample. The Holy Spirit is still speaking to all Christians living in the end times including us.
Apostle Paul exhorted with tears to watch out for those who were then enemies of the cross of Christ. The God they served was their own belly, and they think only of earthly things, testifying that their end is destruction. He gave the same warning message to the Colossians.
Finally, Apostle Paul testified of the spiritual position of Christians living in the world, and what glory they shall receive in the future resurrection of their bodies:
In the English King James Version, citizenship is translated as conversation rather than citizenship. Conversation means to talk to each other. Therefore, our conversation in heaven means that even if we are now living in the earth, we should have dialogues between the saints as if we were already living in heaven.
When Apostle Paul witnessed in the Holy Spirit that our vile body is to be transformed like His glorious body in Christ’s day, as all things obeys immediately upon the word of God, as there was light when God said “There be the light! ” It is the testimony that when Christ appears in the air, and speak unto us, our body shall be transformed like Christ immediately and ascends to heaven immediately. Apostle John testified of what happened to him:
King David, like Apostle Paul, lived with joy in Christ’s sufferings, looking forward to his life’s goal not on earth but in the day of resurrection to be like Christ in that day :