“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for 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
In Philippians 1:9-11 Paul offers a simple prayer for the Philippians to pursue that which is excellent. If they abound in love they will be able to approve – or discern – what is excellent. The excellent things mentioned in 1:10 are nothing more than the ordinary elements of maturing Christian discipleship. DA Carson says, in his book A Call To Spiritual Reformation, that choosing these excellent things “reflect one’s entire value system, one’s entire set of priorities, one’s entire heart and mind.” Carson then goes on to offer practical examples of choosing excellence . . .
“What do you do with your time? How many hours a week do you spend with your children? Have you spent any time in the past two months witnessing to someone about the gospel? How much time have you spent watching television or in other forms of personal relaxation? Are you committed, in your use of time, to what is best?
“What have you read in the past six months? If you have found time for newspapers or magazines, a couple of whodunits, a novel or two or perhaps a trade journal, have you also found time for reading a commentary or some other Christian literature that will help you better understand the Bible or improve your spiritual discipline or broaden your horizons? Are you committed, in your reading habits, to what is best?
How are you relationships within your family? Do you pause now and then and reflectively think through what you can do to strengthen ties with your spouse and with your children?
Do you make time for personal prayer? For prayer meetings? Have you taken steps to improve in this regard?
How do you decide what to do with your money? Do you give a set percentage, say, 10 percent, of your income to the Lord’s work, however begrudgingly, and then regard the rest of your income as your own? Or do you regard yourself as the Lord’s steward, so that all the money you earn is ultimately his? Are you delighted when you find yourself able to put much more of your money into strategic ministry, simply because you love to invest in eternity?
Has your compassion deepened over the years, so that, far from becoming more cynical, you try to take concrete steps to serve those who have less than you do?
Is your reading and study of the Bible so improving your knowledge of God that your wholehearted worship of the Almighty grows in spontaneity, devotion, and joy?
At what points in your life do you cheerfully decide, for no other reason than that you are a Christian, to step outside your ‘comfort zone,’ living and serving in painful or difficult self-denial?
Behind your answers to all these questions are choices. The last thing I want to do is generate a load of guilt because of the choices constantly before us, choices we frequently fail to exploit for the glory of God . . . Feeling of guilt will not by themselves help us to make the right choices; they may simply increase our stress and resentments.
But if our love abounds more and more, shaped all the while by knowledge and moral insight, then these are the kinds of choices we will be wanted to make – and we will be wanting to make them well. They are the kinds of choices that cannot be made on the basis of mere law. They spring from a heart transformed by God’s grace.”
– DA Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers, 128-129.