And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in
knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent;
that ye may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ; Being filled
with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and
praise of God. –
Philippians 1.9-11
‘That
your love may abound’ are powerful words. It is the kind of thing Paul writes
about in nearly every, if not every letter. Love is not just an option or
something we know we should do but don’t really think about. Our love should
thrive and abound in our daily lives. People should see the love of God in us.
To
do this we must choose to know the love of God and how to judge ourselves and
others in the love of God. Paul refers to this in 2 Corinthians when we writes
how the love of Christ should constrain and compel us in all that we do. That
is how we should be motivated, not to prove and point or to put others down or
to win an argument, but judge out of love. In that same passage Paul writes
about how we don’t see people through eyes of the flesh anymore. We stop seeing
them though our eyes but we see them with Jesus’ eyes of love.
It
is easy to judge others by our standards or preferences. I have seen A LOT of
that and have sadly been guilty of it FAR too many times. I think of how much
damage that has done and how much damage I caused.
We
have a standard, a pattern if you, from 2 Timothy where Paul tells Timothy to
grasp on to the pattern of sound doctrine in God’s word. When we combine that
with an attitude of love our whole perspective on others will change.
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