Word of Encouragement (5/24/2021)

We start this week by reflecting on Paul’s prayer in Phil. 1:9-11: “...it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so 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.”

This is a short but dense prayer with a lot of important concepts. But essentially, Paul prayed that the Philippians’ love might abound more and more. Notice how Paul did not pray that they would know and experience God’s love more and more. He prayed that prayer a lot in different letters and occasions. But not here. Here, Paul did not pray for God’s love to abound more and more to the Philippians; he prayed that their love would abound more and more—not so much for them to receive God’s love as to give their love to others more and more. Of course, the two are inseparably connected: we cannot abound in love toward others unless we enjoy the abounding love of God toward us first: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

But it should be no surprise that he prayed this prayer. Love is central in Christian living. The greatest commandment is about love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). The second greatest commandment is about love as well: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). The Ten Commandments are an expansion of these great commandments, further elaborating how we ought to love God (the 1st – 4th Commandments) and our neighbors (the 5th – 10th Commandments).

This prayer implies that we cannot love too much. Those, who love receiving love from others but love little, should grow in love more and more. But even those, who love much, need this prayer: their love, too, needs to abound more and more. This prayer may seem burdensome because love is not an easy thing to do. Love is all about counting others more significant than oneself in humility rather than doing things from selfish ambition or conceit, looking to the interests of others rather than looking only to one’s own interests (Phil. 2:3-4). The default posture of sinners is selfishness. For selfish sinners to love others in such a way is extremely hard.

But the paradox of love is that loving others is far more satisfying than being loved. This is not to discount the profound joy and the deep sense of acceptance and safety we feel when someone loves us. Rather, the paradox highlights how wonderful it must be to love others if it is even better than the great joy of being loved. Love has this particular character because God is love, because it overflows without ceasing from His infinite being rather than from a finite, needy soul. Paul’s petition implies that there is an infinite supply of love from where it comes from. Our love can abound more and more because true love comes from the heart of an infinite God, not from the heart of a finite, needy creature like us. And the only we can abound in love is when God’s love abounds in our hearts. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).

Because we are needy creatures, we may learn to love only by being loved first. But because God is love, love grows, more by giving than receiving, more by sharing than by taking. This applies to our relationship with God, too. Nothing satisfies us better and more than God’s love for us. But our joy increases when we reciprocate God’s love, however imperfectly and insufficiently. This is not because our love for God is better, or more satisfying, than God’s love for us. But it is because God’s love perfects itself by enabling us to love Him: “...whoever keeps his word [which commands us to love Him and our neighbors], in him truly the love of God is perfected” (1 John 2:5).

Let us pray that our love would abound more and more as we grow in the knowledge and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ!

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