Speaker 1: Most of us eat every day, some of us too much,
because yesterday's food is not enough to supply energy for
today's needs. Why then, do some of us expect yesterday's
portion of heavenly manna, the word of God to keep
us through today's challenges. On this program, we are going
to change all of that. Let's experience God's words today
and receive the power we need to live healthy, vibrant lives.
Welcome to your Daily Portion with your host, author speaker,
Elle David Harris.
Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning, Good morning. It is Sunday, January eighteen,
twenty twenty six. Hello, my name is El David Harris.
I am your host, and this is your Daily Portion
where we give you God's word every single day, and
today is no exception. We are continuing in our Lesson
study series uniting Heaven and Earth, Christ in Philippians and Colossians,
and our caption for today is Disunity in Philippi. This
unity in Philippi. Before we get into that, I'd like
to just welcome everybody joining us, especially those people who
know what it's like to forget what year it is,
because for three hundred and some days you've been saying
twenty five, twenty five, twenty five. It takes me about
a month more time to get my mind wrapped around
the new year. And I'd like to also welcome everybody else.
Please please go over to your Daily Portion dot com,
please join our online community, pick up the Your Daily
Portion Life Application Guide, and please, if you will, please
go ahead and click that donate button. You have no
idea what impact your donations can have. It doesn't matter
how small or how large. Really at your Daily Portion
dot com. This is one of the ways that we
continue to build faith and fellowship. Let's go ahead and
pray and get under way. Father, thank you, thank you
for this new work WEEKND. I pray that we will
learn unity, learn unity, and then do exactly what you
have called us to do. In Jesus' name, I pray,
amen and amen again disunity in PHILIPPI. Okay, let's go
right into the scriptures. We're not going to burn any
time going into Philippians chapter two, beginning at verse one.
That's the Book of Philippians, chapter two, and I will
read beginning at verse one. The Bible reads, Therefore, if
there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort provided by love,
any fellowship in the Holy Spirit, any affection or mercy,
complete my joy and be of the same mind. What
is the same mind? Unity? He wants you to be
bound together in love. He wants you to have affection.
He wants you God's people in Philippi. But of course
us two to understand what it's like to be merciful
and live according to the code of condom of people
who are merciful, Complete my joy and be of the
same mind. Like the bonus round in Paul's mind was
all of those things are wonderful, all of them are necessary,
and I want to see this manifest in a unified
or a united spirit. By still in verse one two,
excuse me by having the same love, being united in
the Holy Ghost, and having one purpose instead of being
motivated by selfish ambition. In that word selfish ambition means,
it means. It means that we are thinking thoughts motivated
by only ourself. We couldn't care less about other people.
We couldn't care less about what God is doing in
their lives, couldn't care less about what people are supposed
to receive from us because we are focused on something
other than what God wants. And then of course our vanity.
Each of you should, in humility, be moved to treat
one another as more important than ourselves. What now? The
lesson writer says it must have been a tremendous disappointment
for Paul to see that the Church of God that
he established and loved so much was racked with rivalry
and consumed with contention. He uses a very strong word
to describe the problem, selfish ambition, which being translated, is
used in other places referring to self interested rivals in
Rome bent on promoting themselves rather than advancing the cause
of Christ. Oh, wait, man, like, what year was this
the two twenty twenty six when Paul wrote that, No,
Paul has been resting since a long time ago. Well,
it seems like the people of God still have the
same problem sometimes. And so what God wants us to
do is take the guidance straight out of the scriptures
and yield to Him and be unified by the spirit.
So our first lesson is self ambition destroys unity and
opens the door to every kind of spiritual confusion. My
brother and friend with whom I work every day, it
seems of my life. Eric Thomas talks about the pack.
It's a pack mentality, and this pack we're talking about
it in a positive way. The African wild dog like
they have no self interest, it's weird. And their ability
to hunt and to be successful in the hunt for
the thriving of their species, not just survival, is eighty
percent success rate in their hunting because they don't fight
among themselves like other species of even dogs. They come
in late and take stuff that doesn't belong to them.
And I could go on through other species completely, but
what we're seeing in nature, and I'm thankful that E
and TJ. Pastor TJ. Tius have pointed these things out,
Like our focus needs to be all for one and
one for all. Remember the Three Musketeers. Maybe that's not
the best example, but humans have a habit of looking
out for ourselves. I remember being taught growing up in
New York City, like the first law of nature is
self preservation. Wow, that's antithetical to the Gospel, isn't it? Okay?
And so we need to make sure that nothing be
done through strife or vein glory. Examine one area of
rivalry or competitiveness in your life and surrender it to
Christ today for cleansing. Again, if you look at the
African wild dogs, and you see that their success is
eighty percent or more, sometimes even up to a ninety
percent success rate. It's because they don't have these selfish ambitions.
They want to make sure that everybody in the pack,
from the alpha male alpha females to the pups. Everybody
in the pack gets to eat, and the weaker ones
are served first. I wish I had the time, like
I'm grateful that God is showing us in his word,
he shows us in nature, and he's showing us through
the Holy Ghost the way that we must live, not
only to survive in the last days, but to thrive lesson.
Number two comes in from Philippians chapter two. In verse one,
the Bible reads, the Holy Spirit creates unity when believers
choose compassion, fellowship, and mercy over pride. Let's go back
to verse one of Philippians chapter two. We read it already.
If there be any consolation in Christ and any fellowship
in the Spirit, then of course we see what Paul
continues to say. So we're looking for that encouragement in Christ.
We're looking for that fellowship in Christ, and it is
found in that love and mercy and godly affection and
in unity, as he described later. And so we want
all of these things in place of pride. This fellowship
connea means shared life, spiritual partnership. Again shout to et
on this one too. Covenant living is greater than just
co It's just greater than just a commitment. Covenantal living
is greater than a commitment. Let me say it this way.
Let me say it this way. I remember one time,
many years ago, somebody was looking at what, you know,
trying to talk about what Cain said, Am I my
brother's keeper when he had exterminated his brother. Am I
my brother's keeper? Where is your brother? Am I my
brother's keeper? This? This guy said, I'm not my brother's keeper.
I am my brother. Can I say it again, I'm
not merely my brother's keeper. I am my brother. And
that lines up perfectly with the second and great commandment,
namely this to love your neighbor as yourself. That's covenantal
living if you think about it the way he talks
about it. Covenantal living doesn't only look on others to
be of assistance to them. It's a mutual lifestyle that
really sees the people that we love, the people we're
serving as ourselves like. We literally see ourselves in them,
and it makes us inseparable. It makes us unified under
the Holy gullst to do whatever it is that God
has called us to do as a collective. Make it
a great day. Peace.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us listening. Friends. Always remember we cannot
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
from the mouth of God. This has been your daily
portion with el David Harris. Make it a great day. Yeah.