Last week I invited any who read these posts to consider the long journey from earth to heaven. The Bible verses that remind us to stay focused on eternal things are many, and most who read this know those verses. The knowing about that focus is the easy part. The doing seems to get complicated.
I’ve been thinking the last week or so about Paul’s prayer for the Philippian church. In that prayer, he reminds them to stay focused on the journey’s end, but he also gives them a process—a set of practices—that prepare them for the journey and the arrival.
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 ESV)
These words remind me that everything hangs on love. The whole process that prepares us for journey’s end begins with a growing love, an abounding love. The Apostle, as he writes these words, may well hear in his mind Jesus’ words from Matthew 22: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40 ESV)
Paul continues the process with a growing knowledge of truth that produces discernment. That discernment enables the reader to approve what is excellent. And the result of those approvals is purity and blamelessness. Paul’s prayer for the Philippians is that the process will prepare them for the goal: readiness for the day of Christ.
The goal remains constant. A day is coming, a day unlike any other. We fix our eyes on that day. The process, however, continues daily. God’s Spirit at work in us makes us more and more the image bearers of Christ. Our love for Christ creates in us a passion for His likeness.
We live for the goal. We live in the process.