That Your Love May Abound

Scripture Texts: Philippians 1:9-11

Do any of you still have some unopened gifts under your Christmas tree?  I’m not talking about gifts waiting for someone to come home so they can be opened.  I’m talking about a gift given to you, but you just haven’t opened it yet.  It is safe to say all your gifts have been opened.

Yet in the Christian life we have been given gifts that we have not opened, or at least very infrequently.  All of us feel the regret or remorse in our own neglect of the gifts of God’s Word and the gift of prayer.  You are not alone in this, I feel it, we all feel it.

God wants us to have His gifts, His blessings, His benefits in our life and He has designed a path for that to happen.  The path is prayer.  We have not because we pray not.  We will have when we ask and seek and knock.  But it also matters what you ask for.

When Paul writes his letters to the various churches he gives us a glimpse into his prayer life.  One thing that stands out in his prayers for the Christians inthe various churches is he doesn’t pray like us.  He doesn’t ask for the things we ask for.  He reaches higher, he has much loftier aims.

Paul is a pastor and he has a pastor’s heart.  He loves his people, he loves the church, and it is his great affection that leads him to desire the very best blessings of God in this life.  He is intentionally going after something good for those whom he prays.

This is a prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore answered by our Heavenly Father.  I am calling us to pray for First CRC corporately and each other individually asking the Father in the name of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit to answer this prayer.  Think with me about how we can pray this prayer for each other.

This is Paul’s prayer for the Christians in the church in Philippi in northern Greece.  This is the Holy Spirit’s prayer for the Christians in the church in Lynden in northern Washington.

 

Paul makes a brief prayer with very specific requests for definite things.  In one sentence in three verses he says what he prays for and why he prays for it.