The Daily Rebel Devotional with Derek Griffon

What if you stopped needing to win every rivalry because you became more concerned with Jesus winning? Paul has every reason to be offended. He's sitting in prison while other people are preaching Christ partly because they're jealous of him, competing with him, and even trying to make his imprisonment more painful. Yet Paul's response is remarkable: “What then?” Not because their m...

You can be doing something that looks completely right on the outside while something completely wrong is driving it on the inside. That's the uncomfortable truth Paul exposes in Philippians 1:15–17. People are preaching Jesus—but they're not all preaching Him for the same reason. Some are motivated by love and goodwill. Others are driven by envy, rivalry, and selfish ambition. Same acti...

Courage has a way of spreading. Paul gets thrown in prison for preaching Jesus, and instead of intimidating the church into silence, something unexpected happens: other believers get bolder. They watch Paul remain faithful under pressure and realize that if Christ can sustain Paul in chains, Christ can sustain them too. Paul's courage didn't just affect Paul. It changed the atmosphere ar...

Paul couldn't go anywhere—so God started bringing the mission field to him. That's the wild perspective of Philippians 1:13. Paul is imprisoned, chained, and unable to travel like he once did. Yet somehow the Gospel is reaching people connected to the imperial guard. What Rome intended as a restriction, God was using as a new avenue for the message of Jesus. Or as we've said around...

What do you do when life doesn't go according to plan? Paul is writing from prison. His freedom is gone. His travel plans have stopped. His ministry looks restricted. From the outside, it would be easy to call this season a setback. But Paul sees something completely different: the Gospel is still moving. Philippians 1:12 introduces us to what we're calling grace-fueled optimism —a confi...

Every man's life eventually becomes a story. The question is: What story will yours tell? We close No More Retreat with the final scene of Samson's life. The strongest man in Israel is now blind, bound, broken, and being mocked by the very people he was called to defeat. His story is filled with enormous potential—but also enormous regret. You can't reach Judges 16 without wondering...

How do you know if you're actually growing as a Christian? Paul doesn't end his prayer by asking the Philippians to simply know more . He wants their lives to show something. Love abounds. Knowledge and discernment grow. Decisions change. Character changes. And eventually, something becomes visible: fruit. Paul prays that they would be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes t...

Not everything that is good is God's best for your life. Paul's prayer in Philippians keeps building. First, he prays that our love would abound . Then, that our love would grow with knowledge and discernment . Why? So that we can “approve what is excellent.” Christian maturity isn't just learning to recognize right from wrong. It's developing the wisdom to distinguish between...

Yesterday Paul prayed that our love would “abound more and more.” But he doesn't stop with more love. He wants better love. Love that knows what's true. Love that recognizes what's wise. Love that can discern what's actually best. Because sincerity isn't enough. You can sincerely want to help someone and still hurt them. You can call something loving that God calls destruc...

Here's a question we probably don't ask enough: Are you getting better at loving people? Paul isn't praying for the Philippians to discover love for the first time. They already love. They've supported him, partnered with him, and stayed beside him while he's sitting in prison. But Paul still prays, “that your love may abound more and more.” In other words, yesterday'...

The Gospel doesn't just change how you love God . It changes how you love people . You can feel Paul's affection for the Philippians in every word. He's sitting in prison, separated from people he deeply loves, yet he tells them, “I hold you in my heart” and “I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.” This isn't cold theology. This is what happens when the Gospel...

There’s something more dangerous to a man than failure: success. Failure often drives us to our knees. Success can convince us we no longer need them. That’s exactly what happened to Samson. He didn’t lose because he lacked strength, gifting, or calling. He lost because he slowly began trusting the gift more than the God who gave it. By Judges 16, Samson had experienced so many victories that he a...

There is a finish line—and the finish line has a name: Jesus. For the last few episodes, we've been camping out in one incredible promise: Philippians 1:6. We've seen that God starts. God sustains. God sanctifies. Now Paul takes us all the way to the end: the God who began the work will finish the work. Our confidence isn't in our ability to hold onto God. It's in the God who h...

God loves you exactly where you are—but He loves you too much to leave you there. We've seen that God starts the work and God sustains the work. Now Philippians 1:6 takes us into the lifelong process happening between salvation and eternity: sanctification. It's a big church word with a simple meaning—God is making you more like Jesus. Not instantly. Not perfectly. But progressively, day...

God didn't save you and then leave you to figure out the Christian life on your own. Yesterday, we saw that God starts the work. Now Paul takes us deeper. Philippians 1:6 doesn't simply say God began a work—Paul calls it “a good work.” Why? Because the work happening inside of you comes from a good God. Salvation isn't just God changing where you'll spend eternity. It's Go...

Who started your story with Jesus? Philippians 1:6 contains one of the greatest promises in Scripture, but before Paul talks about God finishing the work, he reminds us who started it. Paul says, “He who began a good work in you…” Not you. Not your discipline. Not your morality. God. Paul's confidence wasn't rooted in the Philippians' ability to hold onto God. It was rooted in God&a...

The Gospel has never advanced because one person did everything. It advances when God's people link arms and move together. That's why Paul could think about the Philippians from a prison cell and pray with joy. These weren't people who simply listened to his preaching and moved on with their lives. From the very beginning, they became partners in the Gospel . They prayed. They gave...

Discipline isn't glamorous. Nobody applauds consistency. Nobody hands out trophies for waking up early, opening your Bible, saying no to temptation, or making the right decision when no one is watching. But every godly man you admire was built in those ordinary moments. Faithfulness isn't accidental—it's the product of daily discipline. And every time you lower the standard, you low...

One of the clearest indicators of spiritual maturity isn't how much you know about God—it's how often you talk to Him about other people. As soon as Paul finishes greeting the Philippians, he does something remarkable. Sitting in a Roman prison, chained to a guard and uncertain of his future, he doesn't begin by praying for his own comfort or release. He begins by thanking God for p...

Everyone wants peace. We look for it in success, financial security, healthy relationships, vacations, a better schedule, or the hope that someday life will finally slow down. But the peace the world offers is always temporary because it's built on temporary things. That's why Paul doesn't greet the Philippians with happiness—he greets them with peace . Writing from a prison cell, c...

Paul opens one of the greatest letters ever written with just three simple words: "Grace to you." At first glance, they seem like an ordinary greeting. But they're anything but ordinary. Before Paul tells the Philippians what they should do, he reminds them of what God has already done. That's the rhythm of the Gospel. Christianity doesn't begin with your obedience—it begi...

Who are you? It's one of the most important questions you'll ever answer. Our world tells us to build our identity around our accomplishments, our failures, our careers, our relationships, or what other people think about us. But Paul opens his letter to the Philippians by reminding us that the Gospel gives us an identity the world can never give—and can never take away. Before you are a...

We've spent the last five episodes meeting the people behind the letter—Paul, Timothy, Lydia, the slave girl, and the Philippian jailer. Now it's time to understand the letter itself. Because you'll never fully appreciate Philippians until you understand where Paul is writing from, who he's writing to, and why this short letter has become one of the most hope-filled books in al...

Most men don't destroy their lives with one massive decision. They drift there through a thousand small compromises. In Judges 14:8–9, Samson returns to the lion's carcass and finds honey inside. What looked sweet required him to touch what God had already called him away from. That image becomes one of the most powerful pictures of temptation in all of Scripture. Compromise always begin...

Today we meet the final person in the origin story of the church at Philippi—a man nobody expected to become a follower of Jesus. He wasn’t a preacher or a worship leader. He was a Roman jailer. Tough. Disciplined. Respected. His job was to keep prisoners locked behind bars. Yet in one unforgettable night, he discovered the greatest prison wasn’t the one he was guarding—it was the one inside his o...