Philippians 2:1-4 (Unicorn)

Hey guys sorry i haven't posted in a while, but let's get right into this by reading our passage for today.

 "So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2  complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."

Let's break this down starting with verses 1-2. Firstly, we see the words "so if".  Some translations translate this as "since", or "because". Paul used this expression a lot to make a point. Instead of "if", we can read this as because. The encouragement in Christ is Christ walking beside us day by day encouraging us. The comfort from love is also God comforting us by His love. Participation in the Spirit is the partnership we have with fellow believers through the Holy Spirit. And lastly God has shown us affection and sympathy by forgiving us.

Verse 2 says "complete my joy". What does that mean? Well, by reading the rest of the verse we can understand what he meant. Paul strongly desired these believers to be unified in Christ. He wanted them to have the same mind, the same love, and to be unified in one purpose. That purpose being the glory of God.

Verse 3 is now starting to explain the practical way to be unified. If we all lived by this verse, i don't believe we would ever fight. If we never did things out of selfish ambition or deceit, and always counted others as more important than ourselves, we would have no problem living in perfect harmony.

Verse 4 continues explaining this concept of how to live in unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ. It says to not look after our own interests, but to look at the interests of others.

I went on a missions trip one time with my youth group and sometime during this trip, we came up with a concept. Well really it was more like we had a cool acronym and wanted a concept for it. But anyway, i still remember it. One word. Unicorn. Now you may be wondering, "what does unicorn have to do with being unified in Christ?" Well it's simple. Look at the letters. UN is for unified, I is for in, C is for Christ, and well we never really got to the ORN. (One of my friends said it stood for "our righteous nazarene" but we never really got that cleared.)  Nevertheless, whenever i see unicorn it reminds me to stay unified in Christ. So never forget to be unicorn, regardless of the terribleness of the acronym. ^_^