That your love may abound

"And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment," (Phil 1:9 NASB)

Love is wonderful, but if it is not tempered by wisdom and discernment it can cause great harm. It is good for me to love the starving children in Africa. My emotions are good, my intentions are good, my love is good. But if I send a bunch of money to a fraudulent organization, my love has done no good. If my heart leads me to say to a woman who has just had a miscarriage, "Don't worry, you will have other children," my heart has failed to give me good direction.

These are situations where knowledge and discernment must come in. Knowledge comes from taking the time to be informed, to chose to love wisely rather than just going with what feels good or right at the moment. In addition, we must seek God and ask for His discernment because even when we do our homework it is easy to be led astray. Only God knows the entire situation and we need to look to Him rather than relying on our limited experience and frame of reference.

I have often heard people say that it isn't that complicated, just go and love people. Don't let the details and "what ifs" stop you from doing what your heart is telling you to do. There is some truth to this. We can't allow past bad experiences or fears about people's reactions stop us from doing what we know is right. However, we need to be wise with our love or it could lead us into doing our most unloving deed of the day.


"so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ;" (10)

Loving wisely is not just important because of the impact it has on others- it also impacts our relationship with God and our testimony. As representatives of a God who describes Himself as loving (to the point of saying, "God is love") we need to be loving people correctly or they will get an incorrect picture of who God is. As for God Himself, it is true that He looks at the heart but that doesn't excuse us from being responsible for our actions. It is not enough to be sincere because we could still be sincerely wrong. We need knowledge and insight so that we can be sincere and blameless, "having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God." (11)