A Deep Prayer

Paul’s prayer is focused. It’s theological. It’s deep. He sums up everything that he believes, everything he hopes for, and everything he’s working for - all in one simple, short prayer. Listen in:

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 for the day of Christ. - Philippians 1:9-10

Notice what comes first - it’s the love. That’s our core identity and our core calling - to be loved and to love. And he is praying for deep love, wise love, and love that changes things.

Then he prays for discernment. I suspect we all need that, don’t we? What to do about a particular situation, how to heal a relationship, which way to go in a big decision. But notice, this is not the first prayer. The first prayer is always about love - and then out of that love, or maybe steeped in that love - we move into praying for discernment. I wonder if most of our discernment would gain a lot of clarity if we loved really well first.

And then finally, Paul prays that we’d be pure and blameless. This is not some new legalism or picky moralistic prudishness that he’s praying for. These are robust words, dealing with the deep issues in our hearts like what Jesus used in the sermon on the mount when he blessed ‘pure in heart’ and challenged us with ‘do not judge.’ This is about character growth and becoming more like Christ.

Take some time to pray this prayer for yourself today. Take some time to pray it for someone else today.