Complimentary Story
January 2025“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment.” (Philippians 1:9 ESV)
We live in a dark, and often heartless world. It is a time in which I believe accurately reflects what Jesus said in Matthew 24:12, “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” I often explain this verse with the illustration of dipping your fingers in candle wax. This works in my mind because I feel that most people have either done this, or seen someone do it. The question I ask is, “When you remove your fingers from the liquid wax, how quickly does the wax harden?” I always get the answer, “Almost immediately.” The reason I use this analogy is because I wish to convey that once iniquity abounds the love of many starts to grow cold almost immediately. If I can speak plainly, we currently are in a time when the wax has hardened. We live in a time where Biblical love has been abandoned by our society. People have rapidly and dramatically moved even within my lifetime, to reject love for lust. The love for God and for our neighbor has been cast off in an exchange for the love of self and the love of pleasure without restraint. Truth has been exchanged willingly for a lie just as Romans 1 testifies to.
As a Christian, I do not and will not see society’s rejection of God as a mandate for inactivity on my part. I do not believe in a mentality that the war is already lost, so why fight against it? I believe in Spiritual trench warfare that requires me, and by extension you, to step out of the pulpit and out of the pew, into the schools, the towns, the streets, and into homes. I am pretty sure there is something in the Bible about, “Occupy until I come.” (Luke19:13).
If I am right about the mandate to occupy until Christ comes rather than to sit back and wait for Him to come, what does that mean for us as believers in Christ? It means we have to contend for the faith in ways that may seem contrary to our fleshly desires. What if we loved God and loved our neighbor? Some have perverted love into an excuse to not offend at any cost. Others rightly see that true love requires us to tell the truth, even if it does offend. We do not offend for the sake of offending, but from the position of Truth. When that kind of love offends, it is really conviction rather than offense for the sake of offense.
Love itself is not a noun, it is a verb. Love is not a feeling in my mind, it is a conscious choice to act. The kind of love that the Apostle Paul prayed for the Philippian Church to have, and by extension the faithful of all ages, is love that is tempered with knowledge and discernment.
We need to see the love of God produce faith that demands action, but action tempered and directed with knowledge and discernment that cannot be disconnected from God’s Word and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
The Apostle Paul tells us why we need to have love that abounds with knowledge and 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.” (Philippians 1:10-11 ESV).
How will we know truth if love does not abound in us? Can we ever have knowledge or discernment apart from the love of God which has been demonstrated and given to us in Christ Jesus our Lord?
To have something “abound” means we have it in great quantity. Love is supplied to us, it abounds in us through Christ alone. If true love is not prevalent or abounding, do we really believe we can possess knowledge and discernment? God alone gives true knowledge and discernment through His Word at the direction of His Holy Spirit because of the love Christ has for us.
What if love and truth, wisdom and discernment were the weapons and instruments by which we demonstrated what is excellent, pure and blameless? Are we preparing for the day of Christ? Are we living and walking in Love so that we are filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ? Do we do what we do to bring glory and praise to God?
It is well past time that we in the Church allow the world to define what love is. Love is grounded in the truth of God’s Word not in the world. Love sets the captives free.
Email: AliveMinistriesUSA@gmail.com
