Philippians 4:6-7
“6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
I would like to take you to one of the most special and sacred places on earth. The place is called Trinity monastery located in Meteora, Greece. In fact, three years ago, my wife, Major Soo Kim, and I had the privileged opportunity to visit this area through our territorial educational tour program. I still vividly remember how I was amazed by this breath taking site.
This whole rocky mountain area where this Trinity monastery exists with other several monasteries nearby on other side of rocky mountain peaks is represented as having one of the richest heritages of the monastic spirituality of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
I want to ask you to take a moment to imagine how this monastery could possibly be built on this particular rocky place. We can only wonder in glimpse how the first group of monks who found this unique place poured their tireless labor into the endless process of building this monastery.
However, at least, we can think about what the desire or motivation the monks had in their minds as they were climbing on this rocky mountain carrying rocks and stones in their hands and on shoulders in order to build this monastery first time. I believe that they had a holy longing for seeking and pursuing the higher life to God. For them, the unimaginable hard labor to build this kind of rare place for monastic living must have been considered as a sacred way of fulfilling God’s call as monks.
I understand that monks are the people of God who has a special vocation to set apart themselves from the world in order to pray for the world in the path of the journey toward the higher life to God. Then, what we would want to ask to the monks about is this: “What is the goal of the higher life to God? What is the path to experience the higher life to God in this life? Someone can wonder if this goal would belong to only some chosen people but not to themselves.”
Fortunately, we do not have to ask these important questions to the dead monks in this place. In Philippians 4:6-7, Paul reveals and teaches us “the Golden path to the higher life to God.” It is God’s provision for us that through Apostle Paul’s persecuted life experiences God wants us to follow Paul’s living advice regarding our seeking and pursuing the higher life to God. It is crystal clear that if we follow Paul’s advice God will allow us to reach the goal of experiencing the higher life to God even in this life.
What is Paul’s teaching of “the golden path for the higher life to God”? First, it is important to acknowledge that the final stage of the higher life to God in Paul’s teaching in today’s text is to ‘having the heart and mind which is guarded by the peace of God in Christ Jesus.’ It is a fundamental meaning of the Scriptural holiness.
In today’s text, Paul’s teaching of “the Golden path to the higher life to God” is presented as this integrated order:
First, for taking the basic step for the higher life to God, Paul urges us to “not be anxious about anything” (v. 6 a ).
Second, In order to live a “worry free life,” we need to devote ourselves to live the focused prayerful life in every aspect of our lives in thanksgiving. The key word here is “thanksgiving.” How often do we find ourselves falling into the temptation to spending more time to pray about our agenda with anxiousness instead of asking for His will to us in thanksgiving?
Finally, it is good news for us as his children that the result of devoted prayerful life with thanksgiving will be that God will grant to His peace in our hearts and minds in Christ on this earth. The one commentary emphasizes that “the peace promised here is far more than an absence of conflict. Rather, it is a total well-being, and it comes from God-once again, to those who are in Christ Jesus and who share his attitude, so that his ‘heart and mind’ become theirs.”
Truly, our goal for the higher life to God is to have the heart and mind that is in Christ who is the source of true peace of God. Without doubt, this is the God given expectation and privilege for us that every Christians must seek and experience. God knows our desires for Him and our thirsts for peace that reigns our daily living .
It is my hope and prayer that while we are serving God through the ministry of The Salvation Army that we will allow the Lord to continually help and guide us to seek and pursue the Golden path for the higher life to God in our daily walk in Christ, so all God’s children will enjoy the peace of God which “transcends all understanding (v. 7)” in the same way of Paul experienced as a exemplary follower of Christ.
