WHY DWELL IN SELFLESS LOVE?

“…to the glory and praise of God.”  Philippians 1:11b

From the Westminster Short Catechism: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

Early in this prayer from Philippians 1, we ran across God’s promise in the last part of verse 10: “…in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ.”

For those of us who allow our selfless love to “…abound still more and more…”, we obtain eternal life with God—the result of being found sincere and blameless on Judgment Day (the Day of  Christ). That verifies the second part of the promise found in the Westminster Short Catechism—enjoying Him forever in eternal paradise. Not a bad reward for living in the attitude of selfless love!

We find even more motivation with the prayer’s ending: “…to the glory and praise of God.”

Can you imagine a life in which all your actions, words and thoughts are motivated by a desire to bring glory and praise to God? Since we trend towards self-absorption and self-centeredness, it may be difficult to visualize a life centered on God to that utmost degree. Or maybe we can visualize it, but we simply don’t want to live there?  Too daunting? Too selfless? Too risky?  All the above?

A.W. Tozer uses a phrase to describe a person who might be considering walking that path, and I quote: “I long to live in restful sincerity of the heart.”

Consider the opposite: “I long to live in the midst of everything I want and desire.”

We’re tempted to declare that if we had everything we wanted or desired, our lives would be perfect.  However, that proves to be false again and again, practically every day of our lives. Not long ago, we enjoyed a beautiful autumn day—perfect temperature, sunny, and a slight comfortable breeze. But with that perfect day came the Asian beetles, swarming and biting.  Apparently, they thought it was a perfect day to be outside too. They succeeded in ruining an otherwise perfect day outside.

Since all of us are created in God’s image, we’re called to reflect Him. When we reflect Him, we bring glory to Him. Imagine a life in which a person is perfectly ably to reflect Him in deed, word and thought.  That creates the ‘restful sincerity’ which Tozer writes about. The person’s motivation is centered upon glorifying his God.

No ulterior motives at all—only desiring to glorify God. Not striving to make good impressions—only desiring to glorify God.

Through the Holy Spirit, Paul writes a perfect prayer in Philippians 1.  First, it’s couched in the desire to possess more and more selfless love in our lives. Secondly, the foundation of selfless love must be real knowledge and all discernment. We can’t expect to find God’s brand of selfless love at Wal-Mart. Instead, it comes through fully knowing Him and His desires for us.

Under the umbrella of that full knowledge, we learn the most excellent actions and words to take in any situation, in front of any person. The Greek word used for excellent can be used one of two ways.  It can simply denote ‘move differently.’ For example, in disc golf I can putt with a Judge or a Luna. There’s nothing of better quality in the choice. They’re just different putters.

However, the other way this Greek word is used can be defined as ‘move differently’ in a much better way.  That’s why your Bible uses ‘excellent’ rather than ‘different.’  

Therefore, we move forward, taking more excellent actions or speaking more excellent words, which creates the fruit of righteousness, occurring because Jesus Christ dwells within us.  Far, far better than shopping for it at Walmart.