Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer reflects the very heart of what God desires to do in His people, and it is good to bring this request before Him in the name of Jesus.
The love you are praying for is not the love that is common to human experience. There is a love that is physical and selfish, and there is a love that is emotional and reciprocal, where we love because we are loved in return or because someone is attractive to us. But the love spoken of in Philippians 1 is different. It is divine love, a giving and selfless love that God Himself pours into our hearts. It does not take, it gives, even as God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.
Scripture teaches that knowledge alone can make a person proud, but love builds up. That is why your prayer is ordered so wisely, that love would abound more and more in real knowledge and discernment. Without love, even great gifts, deep insight, or understanding of mysteries have no lasting value. Love is greater than those things, and it remains when other things pass away, because love holds within it both faith and hope. When love grows, knowledge finds its proper place and is used to build others up rather than to exalt ourselves.
You have asked that you may approve the things that are excellent and be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ. That discernment comes as this divine love matures in you. As you walk in that love, you will not be concerned only with what you are free to do, but with what is best, what most honors the Lord and strengthens others. Love makes you want what is pure and without offense before God, not out of fear, but out of a sincere heart that wants to please Him.
This is the evidence that we belong to Him and know Him, for God is love and love is from Him. We do not love Him first as if we have done Him a great favor. We love Him because He first loved us, and sent His Son to be the payment for our sins. His love for us is not caused by anything in us and cannot be bought or earned. It flows freely to us, and it is unquenchable. When we understand how fully He knows us and still loves us, our hearts respond with love for Him and for one another.
And that fruit you prayed for, being filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, does not come from your own effort to be good. It comes through Him. As you remain in Him and His love remains in you, that fruit grows naturally, and the result is not praise for you, but glory and praise to God.
So we join you in this prayer, that the Lord would cause His love to abound in you more and more, that He would give you true knowledge and clear discernment to choose what is excellent, that He would keep you sincere and without blame as you look toward the return of Christ, and that your life would be filled with the righteousness that only Jesus can produce, all to the glory and praise of God the Father.
May the Lord continue to reveal to you the height and depth of the love of Christ, which is greater than knowledge, and may you walk in that love day by day, loving Him and loving others with the love He has first shown to you.
The love you are praying for is not the love that is common to human experience. There is a love that is physical and selfish, and there is a love that is emotional and reciprocal, where we love because we are loved in return or because someone is attractive to us. But the love spoken of in Philippians 1 is different. It is divine love, a giving and selfless love that God Himself pours into our hearts. It does not take, it gives, even as God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.
Scripture teaches that knowledge alone can make a person proud, but love builds up. That is why your prayer is ordered so wisely, that love would abound more and more in real knowledge and discernment. Without love, even great gifts, deep insight, or understanding of mysteries have no lasting value. Love is greater than those things, and it remains when other things pass away, because love holds within it both faith and hope. When love grows, knowledge finds its proper place and is used to build others up rather than to exalt ourselves.
You have asked that you may approve the things that are excellent and be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ. That discernment comes as this divine love matures in you. As you walk in that love, you will not be concerned only with what you are free to do, but with what is best, what most honors the Lord and strengthens others. Love makes you want what is pure and without offense before God, not out of fear, but out of a sincere heart that wants to please Him.
This is the evidence that we belong to Him and know Him, for God is love and love is from Him. We do not love Him first as if we have done Him a great favor. We love Him because He first loved us, and sent His Son to be the payment for our sins. His love for us is not caused by anything in us and cannot be bought or earned. It flows freely to us, and it is unquenchable. When we understand how fully He knows us and still loves us, our hearts respond with love for Him and for one another.
And that fruit you prayed for, being filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, does not come from your own effort to be good. It comes through Him. As you remain in Him and His love remains in you, that fruit grows naturally, and the result is not praise for you, but glory and praise to God.
So we join you in this prayer, that the Lord would cause His love to abound in you more and more, that He would give you true knowledge and clear discernment to choose what is excellent, that He would keep you sincere and without blame as you look toward the return of Christ, and that your life would be filled with the righteousness that only Jesus can produce, all to the glory and praise of God the Father.
May the Lord continue to reveal to you the height and depth of the love of Christ, which is greater than knowledge, and may you walk in that love day by day, loving Him and loving others with the love He has first shown to you.
