“For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.” Philippians 1:8-11
“And this I pray…” Paul was a man of prayer. We see numerous times throughout his letters to the churches that he says he is praying or that he mentions prayer.
Once again, we need to pray consistently for our brothers and sisters in Christ. We need to pray that the Lord would bless them, that the Lord would give them strength, and that they would find peace and joy in Christ. I truly believe that if we prayed more for and with each other, we would have stronger churches.
Paul had pretty specific prayer requests in this passage. Let’s take a quick look at them and see how we can apply them to our prayer life.
- Paul prayed for their love to abound.
The word abound means to be in excess. Paul’s prayer was for the church to have excess love, to have extra love, to have more than enough love as they went about their good work.
The request was that their love abound in knowledge and judgment. Knowledge here means to discern, and judgment means sense. I believe Paul was praying that their love would grow as they served God and witnessed to people. If we don’t love God like we should, we won’t love people like we should.
Counted Faithful 