“I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. 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. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.”
Philippians 1:9-11 NLT
The natural outworking of God’s love in the life of his people is the fruit of the Spirit played in the nuance of life. There are blessings to be had and shared amongst his body. It is important to note how Paul connects the two. The process from love to fruit is lynch pinned by the concept of knowledge and discernment. To string together love with blessings, you must first grow in understanding and have that knowledge turn to wisdom. Discernment is, in this case, the ability to use knowledge to navigate to the best outcome of many choices. It is praxis. Many Christians today would like to have love without knowledge. They would like to have fruit without wisdom. Paul points out their intricate relationship here. These concepts reside on a spectrum of Christian maturity and therefore cannot be disentangled from each other without the whole spectrum being unraveled. Whenever we place any of these four topics as our goal, they must also come in hand with the others as well. Love must go hand in hand with knowledge, discernment and fruit. Otherwise it is not a biblical live and will necessarily be terrible unbalanced. This will lead to one or more areas of the spectrum being compromised in our Christian maturity.
JOSH McGARY. COM 