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. Philippians 1:9-11.
Paul prayed for the church at Philippi to abound in love. Paul stated in his first epistle to the church at Corinth that love never fails.
God is love. To know and to obey God is to live and to walk in his love. But his love is not just a feeling of sympathy and pity for others. His love sees through the outer symptoms of a problem, and his love goes to the heart of the issue.
Paul prayed for the church to abound in love with knowledge and depth of insight. He prayed that the church would discern what is best. Surely this does apply to each of us as we walk with God daily. God wants us to make wise choices and to choose what is best.
But I contend this passage clearly deals with our love walk with those in our sphere of influence. We are to abound in love toward our families, our friends and those God has placed in our lives for the purpose of ministry. But that love should abound with the knowledge from God, and with depth of insight into the heart of the person.
God wants us to see people as he see them. God looks upon the heart. God sees through all the defenses people maintain, and he clearly looks beyond the symptoms and circumstances to deal with the heart of the issue in each person's life.
The type of knowledge and discernment from God that we need to successfully love others will only come as we spend quality time in prayer. As we draw closer to God, then we can begin to see the person, we are attempting to love as God sees him.
Recently I was faced with a situation that caused me to react with great anger. I had heard bits and pieces of what had happened in this situation. It caused me to be angry for about a period of 18 hours. I had difficulty sleeping I was so angry.
It was my responsibility to deal with this situation, but I was very angry. So I knew that I needed some prayer support before I did anything in reaction or in response to this situation.
I called a brother in the Lord and he calmed me down and he gave me some good insight into the manner in which I should handle this particular situation. So, I chose to heed his counsel.
Guess what?
I discovered that I had not been seeing this situation correctly. I did not have all the information. If I had handled this situation the way I had desired when I was angry, I would have made a huge mistake. I am now able to love the people involved in this issue with a love that has greater knowledge and insight.
As a side note, let me state the obvious. It is never wise to deal with people when you are filled with abundant anger like I was. You will usually not fix the situation, rather you will cause more harm than good.
We are all responsible to love. We are responsible to love family, friends, and others in the world who are broken and hurting. We can be effective in ministering God's abundant love to others, as we learn to grow in his knowledge and insight.
As we learn to love with God's abundant love in knowledge and depth of insight, then our lives will be filled with the fruit of his righteousness. Then your life will bring glory and praise to God.
Sounds like a good deal to me!!
Wayne L. Williams
Atlanta, Georgia
October 10, 2002