May we be sincere in the light of God's Word

My preacher friend, Russ Fox, shared this from Philippians 1:8. As I read it, I'm reminded that I think the furniture in our house is clean until the sun comes shining through the window exposing the dirt. Let us as believers not be fooled until we have been examined by the sun of God's light.

Philippians 1:8 For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ. ⁹ And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, ¹⁰ that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, ¹¹ being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

“Sincere” refers to something that is able to stand inspection when put in the sunlight. In the Marines we had to spit-shine our dress shoes; and you really couldn’t tell whether they were without smudges until you looked at them in the sun light. In the Proverbs we find this statement, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes; but the LORD weighs the hearts” (21:2; see 16:2 also). We humans do tend to think that what we do is OK; we can easily justify our actions as appropriate, finding an excuse for most anything that we do. However, God is the ultimate sunlight, the ultimate bright light that shines on all our actions, weighing it according to His righteousness. The Bible tells us that even our motives will come under His scrutiny one day (1Corinthians 4:4-5) and the “hidden things” will be brought “to light.”

Christians, as Paul prayed, should live in such a way that they are “sincere” or “pure” in their motives and deeds. That they should live according to the word of God and the leading of God’s Holy Spirit, allowing both to expose any smudge, any wayward thought or deed, bring everything into obedience to Christ. This may seem a tall order, particularly when you’ve measured yourself by God’s righteous standard; Christ; but this is the will of God for His children. As I wrote in the last email we are to keep God’s goal in focus always striving to be like Jesus in “all things.”