1,000,000 Chapters Sample

Have you ever noticed how our world has an unhealthy addiction to being happy? The problem with this is that happiness is external and is totally dependent on external circumstances outside our control. On the other hand, did you ever wish you had more joy in your life?  

Joy is an internal gift given to us through God’s Spirit. 

There is no writing in the Bible that better captures this concept than Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Philippi was a Roman colony known for patriotic nationalism. It was the first place that Paul went to in what is today Eastern Europe, but during Paul’s day was an area called Macedonia. The first reading for today is from Acts 16 which recounts why Paul went to Philippi on his second missionary journey and how he planted the church there. More about this when we get to read the whole book of Acts.

Since Philippi was a very loyal area of the Roman Empire, they naturally were hesitant to believe Paul’s message of Jesus being king. This lead the church in Philippi to face persecution because they thought Jesus was the one true king. Ironically, the reason that Paul wrote Philippians was because he was in prison in Rome as a result of his missionary work, at that time, a man from the Philippian church name Epaphroditus brought a generous care package for Paul to survive in prison. 

People didn’t survive in prison unless friends and family members took care of them. This made Paul obviously thankful for their gift, so he sent Epaphroditus back to the church in Philippi with the letter we know as Philippians. 

It was a thank you letter from Paul, but in the letter he also encouraged the community with the fact that living as a Christian means seeing the story your life tells as a lived expression of Jesus’ story. 

As you read Philippians ask yourself, “How is Jesus calling me to live out His story for the world around me?”