TUESDAY 8th
Philippians 1:9-11
NIV (vv9-11) – ‘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 for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.’
ESV (vv9-11) – ‘And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.’
In verse 3 Paul God thanked God in prayer for the believers, here in todays verses he prays for them, and what a prayer:
‘that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and discernment,’ ‘that you may approve what is excellent,’ and
‘so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,’
‘filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ’
‘to the glory and praise of God.’
Paul talks of increasing love in his letters to the Church at Thessalonica, in fact a similar prayer ‘. . . and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.’ (1 Thessalonians 3:12–13) ‘We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.’ (2 Thessalonians 1:3) Paul is indicating that we can never outgrow love, we can never love enough, we need to be expanding continually in love toward God and one another, he adds with knowledge and discernment, what can he mean by this? I suggest that we learn to love and grow in love toward that is which is good and upright, for it is possible to love the wrong things! John shows this in his epistle, ‘Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.’ (1 John 2:15-17) We need to be careful with what (and who) we fall in love with! It is only as we love rightly that we will be able to prove that which is excellent and be pure and blameless for the day of Jesus Christ. One of the verses I ended the devotion with on Sunday was from Romans 12:1-2, ‘I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.’ Do not be conformed to this world could so easily also say ‘Do not fall in love with the world’ or as James says do not be friends with the world (that is its ungodly and unholy practices) for ‘Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God.’ (James 4:4).
May we learn to love and may that love abound more and more, for it only through this way that we will become as Paul prayed for the Philippians ‘filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.’