Sunday, February 22, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Philippians 2-3
Key Verse
Philippians 2:26 — “For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick.”
Devotional Thought
Paul writes to the Philippians from a Roman prison, chained between guards, yet the word that beats through these chapters like a pulse is joy. Before he tells them to rejoice, he tells them how: let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. The Son of God did not clutch His equality with the Father as something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. That is the pattern Paul sets before a church tempted to strife and vainglory. Humility is not self-hatred; it is the mind of Christ, who looked not on His own things but on ours, and so He came down to lift us up.
Then Paul gives us flesh-and-blood examples of that mind. Timothy, who naturally cares for the Philippians’ state when all around seek their own. Epaphroditus, who was sick nigh unto death for the work of Christ, not regarding his life. These are not abstractions; they are men who worked out their salvation with fear and trembling while God worked in them both to will and to do. Their lives shine as lights in a crooked and perverse nation, holding forth the word of life.
In chapter three Paul turns from biography to accounting. If anyone had grounds for confidence in the flesh, he did: circumcised the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee, blameless touching the law. Yet he counts it all loss, even dung, that he may win Christ and be found in Him, not having his own righteousness but that which is through the faith of Christ. This is the great exchange: our ledger of achievements traded for His righteousness, our résumé for His resurrection.
And still he is not finished. Not as though I had already attained, he says, but this one thing I do: forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. The Christian life is a race run by forgiven people, not a performance to earn forgiveness.
In this season of the year, when the days are still short and the world feels heavy, Paul’s words steady us. Our conversation is in heaven, from whence we look for the Saviour, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body. Whatever we carry today, we carry it toward that day.
Reflection
- Where in your life are you tempted to seek your own things rather than the things of others, and what would it look like this week to have the mind of Christ in that place?
- What “gain” are you still clinging to—achievements, reputation, comfort—that you need to count as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus your Lord?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, who being in the form of God made Yourself of no reputation and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, form that same mind in us. Teach us to esteem others better than ourselves, to look not only on our own things but on the things of others, and to do all things without murmurings and disputings, that we may shine as lights in this crooked and perverse nation. We count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. Help us forget those things which are behind and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, until that day when You shall change our vile body and fashion it like unto Your glorious body. Amen.