THAT YOUR LOVE MAY ABOUND

 THAT YOUR LOVE MAY ABOUND 

 “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best, and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God.” Philippians 1:9-11

  As disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must at all times be cautious in our judgments and conclusions as we navigate through the challenges of this life. Our judgments will often impact how we relate to and treat others. Therefore we must be ever so careful so as not to overstep the bounds of godliness. God has given us everything we need to manage our judgments and decisions in accordance with His will, and to reflect the character and nature of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have the Bible as our instruction manual and His Holy Spirit Who directs us in our specific concerns. Therefore, we must be aware that our state of mind and heart will either help us be in tune with the will of God, or blur our perception and hamper our ability to hear from the Lord or rightly divide His Word. As James said, "But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descends not from above, but is earthly sensual and devilish. For where envying and stride is, there is confusion and every evil work." James 3:14-16

  Our judgments and conclusions drawn from our knowledge and insight are purified through the love of Christ. The love of God fine-tunes the conclusions of knowledge and perception, and places them in a godly Christ-like direction, yet never lessens the seriousness of anything that God calls sin or evil, nor shows disregard for any other teachings or doctrines of the Bible. THE LOVE OF GOD DOES NOT PAMPER SIN OR DISREGARD ANYTHING GOD CALLS EVIL, BUT INSTEAD SEEKS TO LIBERATE US FROM THE SLAVERY OF SIN!

WISE JUDGMENT WITHOUT LOVE

  An example of a person who had superb judgment, but to his own downfall, was King David's and Absalon's advisor, Ahithophel. "And the counsel of Ahithophel, which he counseled in those days, was as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God" 2 Samuel 16:23. This brilliant man knew what was needed to accomplish an objective, and he was accurate. His downfall was that he hated his boss King David and even volunteered to lead the army sent to kill him. Had he listened to Ahithopel's advice, Absalom would have succeeded in the complete overthrow of his father's kingdom. When Ahithophel saw that his good advice was not heeded he knew that the insurrection would meet disaster and so took his own life. Dear friends, being intelligent and having good judgment without the love of Christ will eventually lead to disaster!

WHEN EMOTIONS GET IN THE WAY OF PROPER JUDGMENT

  After Absalom was killed and his insurrection was crushed, David, having learned that Absalom was killed, as a loving father took to grief and weeping over Absalom's death in the presence of all those who risked their lives to save him, his family, and his kingdom from Absalom's insurrection. Joab, David's general, rebuked David and saved him from bringing an even greater disaster to himself and his Kingdom. We all know that emotions are a terrible way of making decisions, even if they hold some justification. Whether loving affections, fear, anger, levity, or whatever other emotion, can often defy reason and Biblical obedience and lead us to disastrous conclusions. Indeed we must be guided by truth, godly reason, and wisdom. Misguided affection is little better for making decisions than making decisions out of hate.

WISDOM WITHOUT THE LOVE AND HOPE OF CHRIST AND THE KNOWLEDGE OF SALVATION. 

Solomon said, "For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow." Ecclesiastes 1:18 Wisdom and knowledge can tend to uncover things we would rather not know, or that are beyond our ability to change. Solomon discovered this, and it frustrated him. He also was a good example of having great wisdom but poor judgment. His motives were self-gratifying. His world revolved around him and his personal interests and desires. Truly he was lacking the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the knowledge of salvation that reveals the true heart, nature, character, and purpose of God. These soften the blow of the hard truths, shows mercy, and reveals not only the loving intentions of God but the understanding heart of the Father, despite our human frailty and FOLLY.

 We must understand that in judgment God is lovingly looking at our hearts and our understanding, and not just our behavior. Even though our behavior may deserve His fierce wrath, His infinite wisdom and understanding motivated by His love for us enables Him to see past our sin, and extend grace regardless of our ignorance and sin. "But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ, (by grace you are saved)" Galatians 2:4-5  In spite our evil behavior, He, knowing that in ourselves that we are incapable of obeying Him without failure, in the conclusion of His knowledge and His love, provides us with all the grace we need to live for Him, hence the cross of Christ. Can you imagine where we would be if God only dealt with us according to our actions or our attitudes and not out of His loving understanding and grace? One of the best examples of this is the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) where the son was foolish, selfish, arrogant, and ignorant toward his father (as we often are towards our Heavenly Father), and then squandered his father's goods. His brother was exactly right in his assessment of his brother's behavior from a just point of view, but blind to his brother's real plight because he was not looking from a perspective of love, but justice. Through the eyes of love, the father could see his son's utter serious situation and therefore could disregard his son's hurtful behavior and attitude. Through his understanding and love, he could focus on the deadly plight of his son's behavior and could therefore overlook the more temporal issues of his actions. The brother could only see his brother's wrongdoing and felt a level of injustice toward himself, which was not wrong, but blind to the most critical issue. Even those of us who know the seriousness of sin and eternal wrath, we still sometimes lose sight of it when dealing with injustices and people who have wronged us.

WHAT IS THE LOVE OF CHRIST?

 "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous/burdensome." 1 John 5:3 "Love is patient, kind, does not envy,...thinks no evil (keeps no record of wrongs)...bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Corinthians 13

  Truly, like the peace of God that passes understanding, so is the love of God. It can be an unimaginable deep feeling, but the hard fact is that it is birthed out of the earnest obedience of faith where we steer our reason and impulses to the obedience of Christ in spite of how wronged we may feel, unjust a situation may be, underserving a person or persons may be, and in turn be patient, kind, forgiving, and, "Love your enemies, bless that that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven: for He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on  the unjust." Matthew 5:44-45. This kind of love can heal broken relationships, break the power of darkness, set captives free, and change peoples' destinies, even their eternal destiny. God our Almighty, Loving, Heavenly Father, demonstrated this, as did Jesus His Son and our Lord and Savior, as Jesus faced the cross. When asking the Father if He would let that cup pass from Him, was not His Father's heart broken and would have loved to relieve Jesus of that horrid destiny? Nevertheless, in wisdom and love, He held firm to their plan for our salvation. In the same way, Jesus Himself, knowing that He could have rescued Himself, and knowing that His Heavenly Father would have allowed it, instead, He pushed through the horrible pain and suffering to the point of His death so that you and I could be SAVED. How awesome is HIS LOVE!!! "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from Me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will... Do you think that I could not now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be? Matthew 26:39, 51-54

  All this to say, how would our conclusions be towards others, even toward our fiercest opponents if we would view them in the Love of Christ and not by everything they may say and do, which by no means condones or embraces sinful or evil behavior? If our conclusions bring us to anger, bitterness, resentment, and hopefully not hate, where are we really heading? Are our conclusions pure and untainted? Are our knowledge and perceptions slanted? Are our judgments inspired by faith in Jesus? I am addressing this because of the increasing anger, bitterness, resentments, and even hatred that we see in our society. Maybe there are valid reasons, but are these God's perspectives? Are we actually identifying the true problems and sources? As stated in the Scriptures, people are not our actual enemies, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12 Indeed, faith and the Scriptures are the tools, but the Love of Christ is the filter by which we can have a clearer perspective, draw the right conclusions, stay in tune with the Holy Spirit, make the right decisions, and even comprehend the teachings of the Bible as He intends it. The love of Christ is the heart of God. By abiding in Him and according to His Word only then can we actually discern correctly, draw the right conclusions, and take the right course of action. "Faith which works by love." Galatians 5:6 That is how we overcome evil with good, Romans 12:21. Through the Love of Christ we make the hard decisions to obey the Word of God, forsaking all our natural and even reasonable thoughts and impulses so as to please the One Who loves us. Then we can move forward by praying for and reaching out to those who hurt us, offend us, and to those who are perishing. May the Lord be merciful to us all.

Dear friends, the agenda of God right now is not to fix everything wrong and obliterate all the evil and injustices, which He will do in His good time. But His primary goal is to save sinners, strengthen the saints, and glorify Jesus the Savior of all mankind! When Jesus returns, He will clean up the rest. Let us abide in the Love of Christ which is the end product of our faith and therein see others through His eyes and with His heart. He loves us so much!