7 It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. 8 God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge (super-knowledge) and depth of (all) insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best (excellent) and may be pure (nothing to be judged negatively for) and blameless (without offense) for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
The Prayer of a Lover
How do you pray for someone you love? Is that prayer different from how you’d pray for someone you hardly know?
I did a search online for prayers for someone you love and didn’t find any. There are many prayers available online-like a prayer that God would make me more loving, or give me His kind of love, or even that He would give me a soul mate (someone to love me), but no model prayers for a lover. Paul sets a model for prayer concerning one you love, and it’s a rich example. This is what Paul prays for people he loves:
Love abounding more and more
Maturity is something few people seem to be talking about. We talk about effectiveness, efficiency, passion, pride, and productivity, but little about character. Who you are is more important that what you do. Who you are becoming is more valuable that what you produce. Paul prays that the ones he loves will become better lovers. Love is difficult. It requires we get out of ourselves and look to the needs and aspirations of others. Passion focuses on my needs and fulfillments. Love looks to the needs and fulfillments of others. In the kingdom of God, we are measured not by the bottom line of a balance sheet-we are measured by how deeply we have grown in love over our lifetimes. And there are elements of love Paul mentions that are not intuitive, knowledge, insight, and discernment.
Knowledge
Love must be knowledgeable. How do you respond to a beggar on the street? If you ignore them, as I often have, you are probably not doing the loving thing. But what if you give money to a beggar who immediately takes your money to buy his favorite intoxicant? You haven’t helped him. The old saying “love is blind” isn’t what the Bible teaches. Lust may be blind, but love must be knowledgeable. You can’t know how best to love the world unless you know the world. In fact, as described in our considerations of Ephesians 5, the Bible speaks of sex as knowing-Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bare Cain (Genesis 4:1). For this reason, Peter tells husbands to love their wives according to knowledge (1 Peter 3:7). True love knows and understands and, from that knowledge, tailors love to the needs of the beloved.
Insight
Strong’s Concordance describes insight in this way “properly, the brand of sense-discernment which "cuts through" hazy ethical (moral) matters to really "size things up"”. There are many “hazy ethical and moral matters in the world today. In order to love people we have to come to terms with the realities they face, and offer viable solutions to apparently intractable problems. Love that simply tells people that what they are doing is wrong is no love at all. Love that helps people overcome and understand their problems is immediately helpful and beneficial. To love this way we need both insight (understanding) and discernment
Discernment of Excellence
C. S. Lewis wrote a wonderful book The Abolition of Man. In it he argued we as a culture are devaluing the qualities of character that have defined civilized thinking around the world for thousands of years-the ability to recognize beauty and goodness and truth. Here’s an extended quote from the end of the chapter called Men Without Chests
"We were told it all long ago by Plato. As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the 'spirited element'. The head rules the belly through the chest— the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments. The Chest-Magnanimity-Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal. . . .
"And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive', or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity'. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."
Paul prays for the people he loves that they would learn to discern excellence, knowing right from wrong and good from evil, as well as beauty from ugliness. This discernment is an essential quality for the nurturing of the better angels of our humanity
Pure & un-offensive
Someone has said that character is what you are in the darkness, when no one can see. Purity is what is seen in you when the light of the sun reveals all of the secrets of the darkest corners of our minds and hearts. If everything within you were brought into the light of day how would you be judged? Purity is unafraid of light, because light is its natural habitat. Even if everything were exposed there would be nothing to judge negatively. Someone with a pure heart creates no offence the better you get to know him or her. Such a soul is winsome and attractive.
Filled with Fruit of Rightness
What is the fruit? Jesus said if we abide in Him, and His word abides in us, we would bear an abundance of fruit-fruit that remains (John 15). I believe there are three kinds of spiritual fruit the Bible talks about. One is character-which includes love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faith, and self-control (Galatians 5). Second is the working of the Spirit through Christ’s body, wisdom, understanding, healing, and prophetic truth-telling (1 Corinthians 12 & 14). Third is the fruit of people you invest yourself into, who, as a result of your influence, become better people who, in turn, make the world a better place. Jesus called fishermen to fish for men. He made a tax collector into a Gospel writer. He made a murderer, Paul, an ambassador of life. When Christ’s Spirit works through us, God uses us to transform people’s lives for the better. This is, I think, the best of the fruit, and is the result of the first two.
Glory
Imagine if this prayer were answered in any individual’s life. Paul’s prayer for one he loves seems to lead inevitably to the creation of a wonderful person. If God answers this prayer, the recipient of the blessings would be immensely attractive-the result, one might think, would be adulation and appreciation. But this is not the way Paul concludes his prayer. He wants the greatest benefit for the beloved-that God would receive all the glory and praise. When your character and contribution coincide to bear great fruit, our God is honored. We are humbled.
In this is the greatest satisfaction.
Prayer for today
Father,
Teach me to pray well for those I love. Create in all my loved ones a heart that is quick to learn, fit to grow, fast to give and full of understanding. Let their lives become praise songs for Your glory.
In the name of the One who sang with His disciples before going to the Mount of Olives to prepare His heart to give His all.
Amen
