Wisdom Wednesday: A Prayer for Wisdom
Submitted by Debbie’s Dad
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
(Philippians 1:9–NASB 1995)
On the way to our recent mini vacation to celebrate Debbie’s birthday, I was often stuck behind trucks on the interstate, and got to read a lot of company names and slogans. I was intrigued by the simple slogan on a Walmart truck that read, “Save Money. Live Better”. The slogan was adopted by Walmart in 2007 and attempts to summarize the Walmart “brand” in a compact, memorable form.
In the passage above to the believers at the church in Phillipi, Paul expressed his prayer for the believers in a simple form, explaining the means to live the Christian life, the effect in this life, and the ultimate result of such a life.
The prayer is in three parts:
- The Means: Live with love expressed in knowledge and discernment–In his prayer for the Colossian believers, Paul uses the expression, “… be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (Col 1:9.) He prayed similarly for the Ephesians to have wisdom to live (Eph. 1:7)
- The Effect: So you will be sincere (Genuine) and blameless as well as filled with righteous fruit–The effect of life lived in the love and wisdom of God is one which has no offense to others, but produces spiritual results – called the fruit of righteousness. This analogy to fruit is used by James (James 3:18) and elsewhere by Paul as the righteous fruit produced by the Spirit (Gal.5:22-23, Eph. 5:9). The writer to the Hebrews refers to the “fruit of righteousness”. (Heb. 12:11)
- The Ultimate Result: That will result in glory and praise to God–this is the future result of present behavior: to
Such a direct simple formula for living the Christian life. If we were to make a memorable slogan for this wonderful prayer, it might be:
Love in wisdom, Live blamelessly and righteously, Leave a legacy that glorifies God.
May we be like Joseph, to whom God will grant favor and wisdom to lead our lives walking faithfully for Him.