Understanding Leads to Love

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 until the day of Christ,
Philippians 1:9-10 NIV


As I was spending time in the Word this morning, this Scripture really jumped out at me. As I read it, I realized an important relationship between an understanding of Scripture and love. It's clearly evident that our ability to love is directly proportional to our knowledge and understanding of Scripture.

Paul's prayer for the Philippians is that their love increases. He describes the means by which that love increases: through knowledge and depth of insight. Of what, though? God's truth found in His Word is the answer. How do I know? I know that God's Truth found in His Word is the object of our knowledge and insight we need because of the consequence Paul mentions in verse 10. The consequence of an increasing knowledge and depth of insight is an increasing ability to discern what is best, purity and blamelessness. The only possible way to achieve these is through a deeper understanding of Scripture.

So there are many subsequent things that happen in our lives as a result of knowledge and deeper insight into the Bible: discernment, purity, blamelessness and an increased ability to love. That's the power of God's Word in our lives! Take time to read and study the Bible today.