Praying with Paul

This devotional is written by Tash Peters. Tash is a geography student at Leeds who loves Christmas. 

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.

In Philippians verse 1-9, Paul writes his prayer for the fruitful and faithful Philippian church. Paul is asking for more of the same; that they would continue to be loving, to praise God and be faithful to him. He asks for love that 'abounds', meaning overflows. Additionally, he prays for wisdom, as Christians we need wisdom to be loving. Sometimes we must ask ourselves is what we're doing loving, supporting a friend, or condoning a bad behaviour? The Church needs to be discerning in situations, both loving and wise. When we act in these righteous ways, Paul tells the church, Jesus is glorified. This is the aim. Going to church and praising God is never the end point, there is always more that we can and should ask for. We need to be people of love and grow in that. When we act in a loving, wise way we are pleasing to God and the son. Sometimes, of course, this can be difficult especially now when many of feeling like we are in survival mode. How can we be loving to others when we feel so tired, anxious and depressed? We ask. Jesus tells us anyone who asks will receive; there is no better time to increase the love we are giving others, especially when everything feels hopeless. Pray today that God would give you the energy to be not only loving, but wise in how it is done.