One of my favourite books of the New Testament is Philippians. We are studying it at our church in our Mum’s Bible group. This morning we looked at 3 verses that I really love. Paul was in prison and he is praying for the Philippians. How encouraging is that?

We looked at Philippians 1:9-11

^“9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, ¹⁰ so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, ¹¹ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God.”

What a remarkable prayer! Paul is asking God to help the Philippians love more in the knowledge and depth of insight or discernment. Two key ingredients essential for any Christian to live a life that is pleasing and glorifying to God: love and knowledge. Both are important and need to work hand in hand. If we only have love, everything would be a bit fluffy. We would always try to please those we love and we would lose sight of the most important thing: pleasing God. If we were only wise and discerning, we would be cold and would not be sensitive to the needs of those around us and would probably become like the Pharisees.

We need to love more and have knowledge that only comes through Jesus. We need to know Him better and we need to imitate Him. He gave us the ultimate example of love and knowledge and discernment. Only through knowing Him deeply we will be able to follow Him. Our lives will then be pure and blameless and what we live and produce will be righteous and will be pleasing and glorifying to God.

My prayer is that this wonderful prayer Paul prayed for the Philippians would be true in my life and in the lives of those who love Jesus.