What Really Matters

Philippians 1:9,10 NLT: 9 I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. 10 For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return.

Isn't that what we are all looking for in every situation that we face in our lives? We want to know what really matters and how we can best serve that fact. Here Paul mentions three things that are intertwined and that I believe must be lived through together for them to be completely effective: love, knowledge and understanding. If we have those three things together working in our lives then we will truly understand what really matters. First is love because it is the greatest commandment that Jesus ever gave to us. The love we have for people needs to be tempered with the knowledge we have about people, our nature and our world that we all live in. That knowledge in turn needs to be tempered with understanding of how those things exist and affect the way that we live. The Message version of this passage says that Paul's prayer is this: "that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush."

I think that is an awesome statement: "use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not just sentimental gush." I think oftentimes when we are told to love our neighbor the first thing that comes to our minds is the sentimental gush that Paul is talking about. Loving someone as ourselves needs to be understood before it can truly be lived. It is a hard undertaking to complete if you really think about it. By the shear definition of our innate survival intuition we are not capable of loving anymore than ourselves; once we begin thinking about the people that mean the most in our lives (spouse, children, parents, etc.) the propensity to talk about the love that we feel for them seemingly becomes mired with the sentimental gush we are talking about. If that is the case with the people we love how is it then that we can believed when we say we feel that way about our neighbors and those we do not even know?

I think that as our discipleship walk deepens with Jesus, we begin to see the people in our world like He does. We begin to feel for their souls and for their basic need to be led and to be genuinely loved unconditionally. Therein lies the key to the knowledge of our love. We begin to know why we love the way we do, because it is how we are taught to love. As the knowledge of our love grows our understanding of the people and their situations needs to increase as well. Simply knowing why we love (or why we should love) isn't enough to love, we need to understand the conditions of the people around require love regardless of their position or situation. Understanding the conditions of people doesn't equate to condoning sin or actions, it makes the sin or action understandable and thus highlights the need for an unconditional love. Jesus never passed judgement on someone who was sinful but rather He had compassion on them and ministered to their basic need for love.

It is my prayer today for me as well as for you, "that (our) love will flourish and that (we) will not only love much but well. (That we) learn to love appropriately. (That we) use (our) head(s) and test (our) feelings so that (our) love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush."