the secret to be content in all things: abiding in Christ (students training, South Africa)

The main line we covered in the recent student training in South Africa was the Experience of Christ in the book of Philippians. My top enjoyment from this line was from the final message.

The experience of Christ is in our spirit but the enjoyment of Christ is in our soul. We need to experience Christ in such a full and complete way so that our experience seeps through to our soul to be our enjoyment, joy and delight.

How do we do this? In Phil 4:12 Paul says he has learnt the secret to be both abased and to abound and in the previous verse to be content in all circumstances. The secret is simply to be in Christ, to abide in Him. To be content in everything means the good things and the bad things.

To be content in all things means to be content in all the ordinary things too! Our Christ does not change, our contentment therefore cannot change.

But how can we simply just abide in Him in all things? The secret is in verse 13. Many Christians interpret this verse in the wrong context. This is not power to shift mountains and control earthquakes or simply to do well in a test or race. This power is the power to be in Him. We can abide in Him because He empowers us to be in Him.

We need to learn the secret. It is not merely enough to know the secret. We all know about abiding in the Lord but have we learnt to abide in the Lord in all circumstances, good and bad? This is where we need to experience Christ in order to know the secret!

May we all experience Christ in this way, until the experience in our spirit seeps through to our soul. In Phil 3:7 Paul counted all things as loss on account of Christ. But in verse 8 he goes further and says on account of the excellency of Christ Jesus, my Lord. The addition of the words “my Lord” indicates that as Paul was writing, he was filled with intimate and tender feelings towards God. Eventually, it became personal and became “my Lord”. We need to experience Christ in such a way until we can call Him “my Lord”!

Something I also learnt in the training was that we need to pray. My highlight concerning this was when I came together with my table mate and we got to pray together for whatever we were burdened for. I also learnt how to pray over something we would like to share with others or just pray read the outline.

My highlight of the training was when we had to prepare for testing. When someone says testing, you automatically become intimidated – but this testing was actually so enjoyable. When you pray over the outline, the word becomes a part of you. If you exercise your spirit with this word that is in you, testing becomes so much more enjoyable and easier. Thank You, Lord, that we could be trained!

[sharing from the recent Students Training in Spring 2012 in South Africa by brother Kyle]