Friday, December 10 ~ tammi

Today's reading from the One-Year Bible Chronological Reading Plan is Philemon, Philippians 1-2:11.

Shoot, I really wanted to do a post on Philemon since this is the only day we read from that very short book and tomorrow we'll still be in Philippians, but nothing really jumped out at me.  It's a good lesson in forgiveness ~ which, of course, is very important ~ but nothing impacted me like these three little verses in Philippians:

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. (1:9-11 NIV)

We talked about the significance of Paul's prayers one of the days were looked at Colossians and here again, we see Paul praying something quite profound.  He's is praying for the continual spiritual progress of the Philippian believers. Like new born babies are expected to grow to maturity, so are new born spiritual babies and Paul's constant concern was for the maturing of the people to whom God had sent him in ministry.

I'm going to lean heavily here on our pal Johnny Mac whose 2-part series on this passage is once again just incredible.  Lengthy, yes (as always!), but definitely worth the time (as always!).  Here are the links to Part 1 and Part 2.

As Paul prays for the spiritual progress of his people, there are five key issues on his heart, five things he's praying for: love, excellence, integrity, good works and glory. He prays that they (and we) would pursue those things. We'll never arrive at perfect love, perfect excellence, perfect integrity, complete good works, and fully glorifying God, but that's the pursuit of our life; Paul sets our goals for us here. He gives us these five things that are the essentials of sound spiritual health... essentials of godliness.  And these five essentials are not just a random checklist; they're sequential.  Each one is foundational to the next.  Love produces excellence produces integrity produces good works produces glory.

MacArthur draws five conclusions from the first part of Paul's prayer:  the love Paul is praying for here is divine ~ a love that can only come from God.  Secondly, it's a defacto love.  The Philippians already have this love of God, but Paul prays it will continue to grow in them.  Thirdly, it's a decisive love:

The term used here is agape and it refers to the highest and noblest kind of love ~ listen carefully ~ which is the love of choice, or the love of will. It is not object-drawn. It is not an impulse, it is not emotion, it is not sentiment, it is not drawn to something because of its beauty, its attractiveness. That's the world's love. The world says I love you because you do something to me. The world says I love you because I feel something for you. That is not the love of choice, that is the love of impulse. That is not the love of the will.  Paul prays for decisive love.

Fourthly, it's a dynamic love, continuing to grow and to affect others.  Fifthly, Paul prays for a love that is deeply anchored in the conviction that is based in truth.  GOD'S truth.  God's WORD.  Which makes it a discerning love.  Real love is NOT blind.

So this is the multi-faceted love Paul prays for the Philippians, the foundational essential to the other four characteristics.  THAT kind of love seeks excellence.  It's easy enough to distinguish the good from the bad, but it takes a discerning love to distinguish between good and BEST.  This is what Paul wants to see develop in these believers and in us.  There are plenty of things out there in our world around us that aren't bad in and of themselves, but are they really the best use of our time and talents?  In terms of the impact on the future, are they really the best choice?

So Paul prays for a divine, defacto, decisive, dynamic, deep, discerning love that produces the ability to distinguish between good, better, and best... which in turn, will produce integrity.  Integrity is when every part of your life touches every other part of your life and there's nothing in your life that's unrelated to what you say you believe.  Everything you do and say matches up to what you claim to believe ALL THE TIME.  That's integrity.  And not only do you not stumble in living what you believe, you don't cause others to stumble either.  When you're in the crucible of testing, no cracks will be found, not even hairline fractures.  You'll be solid.

And when you're solid and you're standing for God against the world through thick and thin, your actions will be speaking louder than words.  This kind of relationship with God produces fruit that others see.  You're compelled to do good works.  But notice a very important note in this verse: verse 11 says, "Having been filled with the fruits of righteousness (that is righteous deeds and righteous attitudes) which comes through Jesus Christ." You don't produce your own. They come through Jesus Christ working in you. So He gets all the glory and all the honor and all the credit. So we learn here that we are to bear fruit but that fruit is the work of Christ working in and through us.

And the work that Christ produces in and through us leads to...?  Glory.  To the glory and praise of God, to be precise.  God has saved us. God has made us fruitful for His glory. We are to be to the praise of His glory. We are to bring Him honor, bring Him glory by our life.

And so the love of God poured in our hearts, abounding in insightful knowledge of His Word causes us to pursue excellence with spiritual integrity which generates a life of power through Christ that produces good works which result in God's glory as a redeeming, transforming God, worthy of eternal praise. That's the sum of it all.

AMEN.

May this be our prayer, too.







Tomorrow's passages: Philippians 2:12-4:23