I do not know about you, but I am bombarded every day with so much stuff. It comes through the television, the online news pages, Facebook, emails, snail-mail, and a host of other avenues. It wants my attention. Often it wants my money too.
Just the other day I was invited to pursue hearing aids, burial insurance, life insurance, new windows for the house, lawn care, a new home, a new car … and that was just in the mailbox. The commercials on television were worse. The ads on Facebook popped up constantly. My phone rang with robo-calls telling me my auto warranty was up on cars we no longer own!
Bombarded from every side. Even as I am writing this, an ad for faster wi-fi flashed on my screen! Perhaps that is why I was captured by Paul’s prayer for the Philippians.
“And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you can approve the things that are superior and can be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.” [Philippians 1:9-11 HCSB]
Paul prayed for his readers to have a growing knowledge and discernment so that they could “approve the things that are superior.”
Then he described those things. He wanted his readers to be pure, blameless, filled with the fruit of righteousness. He wanted them to lead lives that brought glory and praise to God.
I really was struck by that phrase “approve the things that are superior.”
The world bombards us with things that are inferior. It demands our attention to stuff that will pass away with the using. It wants us consumed with consumerism. Our Father God wants us to grow in the knowledge of Christ Jesus so that we might live superior lives, consumed with the desire to know eternal things that will last forever.
Maybe we should all be praying Paul’s prayer – for ourselves and for each other. Amen.
