Love and Knowledge

Had the joy of preaching at our church on the last Sunday of the year. Always feel at the end of the year it is good to turn our attention to the year ahead and to ponder over things which we may make primary aims in the new ‘season.’ My heart was drawn to Philippians 1 and most particularly Paul’s brief prayer in verses 9-11.

Gordon Fee “ suggests that the substance of these three verses could almost serve as a compendium of Pauline Ethics: here is a prayer for love with discernment, for an ability to choose and identify what is best, and for the kind of Christ-empowered life whose fruit will endure in the presence of the Lord.”
In other words Paul is praying for several glorious things all of which revolve around this hub of love. Paul prays that we would love with a Christ-like love, a ‘Christian’ love so to speak. A love, which is distinct from secular love; and the one thing that essentially distinguishes this love from any other is that it is built upon knowledge—knowledge of God.

Paul’s prayer is as relevant and important today as it was over 19 centuries ago. D.A Carson commenting on this prayer pulls no punches as he writes this:
“The one thing we most urgently need in Western Christendom is a deeper knowledge of God. We need to know God better.
When it comes to knowing God, we are a culture of the spiritually stunted. So much of our religion is packaged to address our felt needs—and these are almost uniformly anchored in our pursuit of our own happiness and fulfilment. God simply becomes the Great Being who, potentially at least, meets our needs and fulfils our aspirations.”
The word Paul uses here as he seeks the Lord on ‘our’ behalf is a knowledge that is built upon a relationship with God, a deep inner knowledge of Him built upon a healthy, biblical ‘fear of the Lord’.
Will you heed this prayer? Will you love more and more? Do you dare to know the Lord as He is, allowing His startling uniqueness and majestic Lordship to grip your heart and claim all that you are so you stand out like ‘shining stars’? If you will I can hear even now as the great apostle shouts ‘Amen!’ and the Lord smiles with favour.