Tuesday, August 21, 2007

A Growing Love

“And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you can determine what really matters and can be pure and blameless in 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 CSB)

The hope of every believer is that our love will continually grow stronger day by day, year by year.

The product of a growing love is knowledge and discernment. Love is not necessarily instantaneous but normally takes time to grow, and when we love someone we spend countless hours with them learning more and more about them. This growing love produces more and more knowledge of the one we love, and that knowledge then helps us to discern or understand them better. This is true both in human relationships and in our relationship with God. As we grow in our love for God, we will know Him better and will have a greater capacity for discerning His will.

The purpose of a growing love is to determine what really matters. Life sometimes seems filled with extraneous matters, things that really do not matter very much. We somehow make them more important than they are. Life can have a lot of detours and rabbit trails, and we can get entangled in things that do not matter very much. But having a growing love for one another and for God will enable us to better determine what we truly value. Those values then become our guide points that help us to navigate through life and remain pure and blameless before God. They help us to live light rightly and on target. And life rightly lived brings glory and praise to God.

Father, Help us to have a love that is forever growing and producing what You value, and may that result in glory and praise toward You. Amen.

No comments: