Abundant and Pure

 

“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,”

— Philippians 1:9-10

 

Abound means to exceed beyond what is normal. It is to have an overabundance that pours out of the storehouse. In this case, Paul means a Christian. He prayed that the pure love God gave to them would be so great it could not be contained in themselves, but would pour out on people who were around them so they would be blessed, too.

 

Paul also prayed the Christian’s’ pure agape love from God would abound so that they would have godly knowledge from their continual and growing relationship with God. God’s love won’t be evident and overflowing in a person’s life without a growing relationship with Him. 

 

Along with knowledge, Paul prayed the Christians would have a “depth of insight.” He wanted them to have a profound understanding/insight/discernment of their situation through their intellect and by their senses. By this, they could size things up correctly and understand it rightly because of their growing relationship with God. That growing relationship with God brings growth in having His wisdom and knowledge so they can have His understanding/insight and act, speak, and think correctly. 

 

By having a continual and growing relationship with God, a Christian can have overabundant pure, godly love, knowledge, and insight. With these three things, he/she can know what is best, may be pure, and not stumble into sin. All of these can only occur when we have a close relationship with God. They only come from God because only He is pure and sinless.

Love Your Enemy

 “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”

— Luke 6:35

 

Love your enemies. Actively do what God prefers, in His strength and power, out of obedience to Him. We Christians can do that because we experience God’s love firsthand even when we don’t deserve it. We have His Spirit in us filling us with His love to overflow to other people, even those we consider enemies.

 

Do good to your enemies. In our own strength, powerless and fallen, we are unable. It’s one reason why Luke reminded us we have God’s agape love in us. Agape is holy, powerful, and selfless. It does not withhold goodness from a person because of the hurt a person did. It forgives. This goodness inherently comes from God because of His power. Can’t do good things for someone? Then go to God asking for His power and love and ability to forgive. 

 

Show the depth of love and goodness in you. Give your enemy something dear to you because they need it. God gave it to you out of love, and He is giving you His power and to love and do good even for people who’ve hurt you or other people. That’s not the greatest level of love. Loan to the person and don’t require it back or even interest on the loan, if it was cash. 

 

Why should we love, do good for, and lend to our enemies? Because God first loved us when we were sinners. We made ourselves to be enemies of God. He didn’t hold that against us, but He gave and showed us His great love. God did and does good for us. He gives without expecting us to repay Him. Of course, we could never be able to pay Him for all He’s done for us and given us. 

 

Why should we love our enemies? Because God loved us first, before we loved Him. Out of obedience to God, we tell, show, and live in ways that allow even our enemies to know God and receive His love. 

 

If you’re thinking, “What’s in it for me? I keep doing and doing, but I keep being stepped on,” consider what Luke wrote at the end of this verse. “Your reward (from God) will be great and you will be children of God.” You will receive in commensurate and overflowing measure what you gave, did, or said in love for your enemies. You will be known as a child of God because of your actions, words, and gifts to those who’ve sinned against you. Should we expect anything better than what Jesus received? And yet, He loved even His persecutors so much that He asked His Father to forgive them while He Himself was on the cross. And He agonizingly died willingly for them. For us. 

 

What’s in it for us? We get to see the “lights turn on” in the minds of our enemies as they recognize then accept God’s love. We get the privilege to experience God’s power moving us in obedience to Him. We get to be known as and called children of the Most High God by people and, most importantly, by God. 

 

Love your enemies. Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting a return.

More

 

The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:7-8 [NASB]) 

Peter, the apostle of Jesus, wrote his epistle of 1 Peter to the Christians in Asia minor. He told them how to live as believers in a sinful world that worshipped manmade idols and success. Peter encouraged these Christians to stand strong in their faith while their friends and neighbors continued to live for their own desires. He reminded them Jesus suffered, too, for staying moral and true to God’s purposes. They would experience trials and tribulations as He did.

In 1 Peter 4:7-8, Peter concisely repeated what he wrote in verses one through six. He reminded them the end of the world was coming soon. For the Jews, it was imminent. The Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. For Christians, when Jesus began His ministry on earth, He heralded the beginning of the end. With His first coming and later ascent into heaven, His return to earth could occur at any time or day. The Christians could know the first part of God’s kingdom coming on earth was imminent.

How did Peter tell the Christians of Asia Minor to live as they waited for Jesus’ return to earth? In verse seven, he wrote, “Be earnest and disciplined in your prayers.” To the casual reader, Peter may have sounded like he told them to keep on praying. Yet, when considering the Greek words Peter wrote, we realize he taught these Christians, “Because Jesus was to return imminently, be clear of mind, heart, body, and spirit and have God’s perspective of the world. Understand the truth on both sides of a situation and gain God’s understanding from how He sees it. Then, with God’s perspective and giving all oneself to Him, dedicate yourselves to pray God’s will through His Spirit within you, forsaking your own earthly opinion. Offer your whole being: heart, mind, body, and spirit, as a sacrifice of self-desire and self-will for God’s will according to His wise and knowing perspective.”

Peter understood prayer is more than a “gimme list.” He realized prayer is meant to be a believer’s joining with the God to be in a closer relationship and likeness with Him. Prayer is about relationship with God.

When a parent first introduces prayer to a child, it would be at a meal and/or at bedtime. After that, the next time a person encounters the idea of prayer would be at church as part of worship or in Sunday School where the child hears about Jesus praying or the Jews of the Old Testament communing with God. Still, at each of the learning points, the child or teen may not have learned prayer is about having a relationship with God. The child/teen would have learned what prayer to say at which event or what is expected to be said in a prayer. Yet, that child/teen/young adult may not realize times of prayer are to be about seeking God, His perspective, His will, and growing to be closer to and more like Him.

Peter made this last point clean when he wrote in verse eight, “Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.” What was most important? Show deep love for each other. Our human idea of love is flawed. It often is self-serving. We love so that someone will return our love. We love because we are grateful for someone or something they did. Our love is connected to what we have experienced. It comes from our own needs and from our limited supplies. This love is not about what Peter wrote. He wrote about agape love, not philia love. He wrote about the love that comes from the source of all love, God. Just as God is the source of faith, joy, hope, salvation, etc., He is the source of true love. The love people give each other-philia or eros-is mixed with self-serving motives. Agape is pure love that does not depend on how a person feels. God loves. In 1 John 4:10, the apostle John wrote, “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to as a sacrifice to take away our sins. God’s love is a one-way covenant with us. He loves us even when we don’t love Him. He loves us when we sin, and He wants us to return to a relationship with Him. When Peter wrote 1 Peter 4:8, he meant, “Continue to love each believer like God loves so that the person’s sins against you do not keep you from loving the other believer with a tainted love.”

Having this form of love, agape love, God’s love, requires a person to have a close and growing relationship with God through Jesus. How does a person have a close relationship with God? Believe in Jesus, God’s Son, as the Savior who died to take your death judgment for your sins so you would not die and be eternally separated from God. Believe and live. Believe and experience pure love. Experience agape love that requires nothing from you except to receive it and be with God. Join God in prayer and Bible study growing in a closer relationship with Him and become more and more like Him. Be like Jesus, who though He was persecuted, hated, and hurt, still loved us, and died for us. Prayer becomes more than a recitation of thanks over a meal or a bedtime blessing over our sleep. Prayer becomes our connection with God, who loves us without end. It becomes so much a part of our relationship with God that it no longer feels like a discipline, but a sacred honor and blessing to be with Him. We then want to embrace any opportunity we have for prayer. Unable to get enough with the twice daily times of prayer we learned as children, we find ourselves breathing in and out, our hearts and minds joining with God, so when people see us, they see the heavenly Father. They marvel at the presence of the One with whom you have a genuine likeness.

Get out of meagerly praying for people based on your self-interest. Pray selflessly and with God’s will in mind. Grow in your relationship with Him. Become the shining beacon of His love to the world around you.

Pray because it is a privilege to join with God.

Pray with each breath.

Pray and thank the Lord for this blessing.

Always be thankful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 [NLT])

Love Abounding

 

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight. (Philippians 1:9 [NIV])

            “Love,” some say, “I understand all about it.” Others may disagree and say it confounds them. Love, without understanding its basis, is just another word whose meaning may change with the times. Paul had a particular and perfect standard in mind when he wrote his letter to the church at Philippi.

            The starting conjunction in verse nine requires us to understand what Paul said earlier in the letter. In verse three, he said he thanked God for the Philippian believers and prayed with joy because of their partnership with him in the gospel. Verse six tells us the basis for Paul’s prayer. It says, “Being confident in this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Paul understood God would complete the work He began in them upon Jesus’ return. Because of his close relationship with God, he understood what God begins in a person He completes. God is the basis for love.

            With verse nine, Paul stated what God would perfect and how and why He would complete it. His prayer spoke about the Philippians’ love, knowledge, and depth of insight. Upon looking at these words further, we understand the word “love” comes from the Greek word agape. Agape is love defined by God because it comes from God. Agape love is part of God’s character. Nothing changes it. God’s love is pure, true (Psalm 86:15), faithful (Psalm 107:8-9), and unending (1 Chronicles 16:34) like Himself. John stated in 1 John 4:8, “God is love.” Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 the love of God is patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not proud, not rude, not self-seeking, not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, rejoices with truth, protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres, and never fails. When Paul wrote in Philippians 1:9, “This is my prayer; that your love may abound more and more,” he meant may the love of God, that overflows abundantly to you from Him, grow in you and overflow more and more from you. The love of God in a believer occurs because that person prefers to love Him above his or herself. This Christian chooses to love God, which means growing to know Him more by listening to Him, studying His word, praying to Him, and obeying Him. Paul prayed the Philippian believers preferred to love God more than any other earthly thing, including themselves, their families, their aspirations, and their stuff. This love, Paul prayed for them, would abound. It would exceed and overflow in abundance from God’s overflowing love.

            This love would abound more and more because of their knowledge and depth of insight. The knowledge Paul wrote about is what they would gain firsthand from a relationship with God because of their preferred love for Him. Paul said this knowledge would come from walking daily in close communion with God. It comes from a growing experiential knowledge about God and from God. God’s love would abound from each believer because of His love for them and his or her love for God. God is the source of agape love and the giver and growth of it. The growth of agape love would cause a growth of knowledge about God, divine knowledge. This knowledge includes who God is, was, and always will be, what He has done, and the relationship each person can have with Him through Jesus. The depth of knowledge Paul wrote about was divine knowledge about God.

            The depth of insight about which Paul wrote is God’s ethical laws. Knowing God’s ethical laws and obeying them is a growth process that leads to purity and blamelessness, sanctification. When a person’s love grows for God and other people, sanctification of the person (growth as a Christian) occurs. Sanctification is the growth of holiness. Holiness comes from righteousness as given by God upon a person’s profession of faith, upon forgiveness each day as a person repents and confesses his or her sins to Him, and as that person strives to live by His ethical laws. God gives the ethical laws and the power to live by them, like He gives His love. God can give ethical laws because He absolutely is righteous and holy. Morality emanates from Him. God enables each believer to love Him more and more and to live with a growing depth of insight into His moral laws. The Christian must seek Him and ask for His strength to stand strong in his or her faith. This standing firm for God grows and shows the person’s love for God and other people. It refines the character of the believer. God gives insight from His moral laws to Christians about what is best. In that action, He refines the person by removing the dross of secularity from him or her. This discerning and purifying is sanctification growth. This process continues until the day of Christ’s return to earth to claim His followers.

            Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians and prayed their love would abound more and more from the source of love, God, and overflow abundantly from them to God and others because of their growing relationship with Him and their understanding of His moral laws. God gives the love that grows and the knowledge of Him and His ethical laws. He enables Christians to have His love and to live morally. God gives the power to live as His child in a sinful world. He is the source for love and morality. Paul wrote a Christian’s abounding love, knowledge of Him, and depth of insight bring glory to and praise of God.

            How far have you walked on the road with Jesus in your discipleship? Did you trust in Jesus and confess your sins, but not return to Him? Did you believe and confess, then get trapped trying to get the best things the world offers? Did you profess faith in Jesus and follow Him with the rest of your life? A Christian’s journey is a marathon. Your commitment to God is forever. Have you been faithful to Him? God’s love is always faithful, true, pure, and righteous. He asks you to keep walking with Him day by day and year by year. Stand firm. Run resolute. Let your love abound more and more in the knowledge of and depth of insight in God. 

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends! (Philippians 4:1 [NIV])