"It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God".
Treasuring the partnership he had with the Christians at Philippi through faith in Jesus, Paul prayed that their “love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.” Paul had experienced many evidences of their Christian love. They kept praying for him during the time he was under arrest for preaching the gospel. They demonstrated their love by sending a gift to support Paul, and a member of their congregation, Epaphroditus, came to him in Rome to give him company and encourage him.
Paul’s prayer expressed the importance of continuing to grow in the knowledge of God’s word. The more we learn about God’s will for us in Christ, the greater our appreciation becomes for his love. And the more we are moved to praise him for his wonderful grace and demonstrate our sincere thanks in acts of Christian love.
As Christian love grows stronger in the knowledge of God's loving purposes, we are better able “to discern what is best.” Through his word God helps us grow in the ability to see what is lasting and what is not, what is genuine and what is false, what is spiritually rewarding and what is detrimental to our faith, what is of eternal significance and what is merely temporal.
“Pure and blameless” is what we need to be when the Savior comes on the Last Day. But pure and blameless is not what we can make ourselves. Our pardon comes through Christ. On the day of our Savior's coming, we will stand before God clothed in the perfection of Jesus, credited to us by faith. Now we live for that day of Jesus with confidence that the good work of faith which God began will be brought to completion. We live for the day of Jesus with prayers on our lips for fellow believers thanking God for the joy we have in being partners in the gospel with them. We live for the day of Jesus guided by the word so that our love will increase and our lives will be directed in ways that are pleasing to him. With confidence, with prayer, and with love we live for the day of Jesus Christ—“to the glory and praise of God!”
Prayer:
Lord God, give me a greater understanding of your word. Help me to grow deeper in my knowledge of your saving love in Jesus. Amen.
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