Seeking Joy

Paul writes this from prison and he writes about joy and gain.  A sharp contrast with the life he was living ... or was it?

Philippians 1:8-11

Grow to love more like Jesus by:

Experience God's Love Yourself
It is not enough to read about God's love for you.
You need to, you have to experience it - to understand it!
Relationship with God:
Prayer
Understanding
Seeking
Listening to the Holy Spirit
Understanding
Seeking
Repenting
repeat as needed ...
Service

Choosing What Is Excellent
Discernment - ability to know wrong from right, what is of God or not, lie from truth.
Comes with maturity and study, with the Holy Spirit working in you.
We are all told to test everything - you are supposed to have this!
If you do not study, you will not know, you will not be able to judge.
Conversely, if we take our eyes off God for a moment, we can be surprised ...

Praise Everyday
Give thanks in all.
Concentrate on seeing life's positives.
Do not only view the negative!
Be of help to all, even strangers, do not expect them to acknowledge you.
See all you do as being for Jesus, in His name, for His good, not your own.
What you can not see as being for Jesus, you probably need to step away from as soon as possible.

Bring glory to Jesus.
Bring glory to God.
Just let go of pride, fear, hate, jealousies, all that is not of God.
Seek to love as Jesus demonstrated.