Day 17 | 40-Day Lenten Fast & Devotional

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 for the day of Christ. Philippians 1:9-10

Good morning, good morning, grace and peace be unto all of you, my father's children. It is in fact day number 17 of our 40-day Lenten devotional, and I'm excited to kick the week off on this marvelous Monday. This week, this week, God laid it on my heart, I want to kind of focus in on the spirit of discernment, having a spirit of discernment. It's so important for us to stay focused and also to have a clear understanding.

God is actually saying and what God is actually doing  in this season. So if you have your swords, I want to take a look at the book of Philippians  on Paul's legacy church in Philippi, starting at that first chapter.  And just kinda want to read portion nine and the 10th verse, and find these similar words: “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 for the day of Christ.” This simple few words talks about discernment being rooted in an area and place of love. What it's juxtaposing is the fact that your ability to discern what God is saying is directly connected to your understanding of the love that he has for you  and furthermore, the love that he's expecting  from you.

In other words, this reciprocal context gives you the ability to kind of hear God's heart. Have you ever heard said that before? Listen, I need you to hear my heart.  Hearing someone's heart or hearing the heart of a matter allows you to look past the superfluous things that are on the outside and really get to the crux of the matter. And oftentimes we're so  overwhelmed with emotion, we're so overwhelmed with circumstance that it's hard for us to hear the heart of the matter.

Have you ever been there where you've been distracted by  ven sometimes how you feel or some of the things that may have brought it to you or the packaging that it came in and ultimately you missed  the message?  So listen, if you're operating from the place of love, that understanding that your insight  will be affected by  your understanding of what love looks like.  Love has the ability to cut through nonsense.

And when we move and maneuver through this life, we need to have a sound understanding of what God is doing. It's easy to be distracted, especially in today's time and age, where there's so many things vying and pulling for our attention. How do we know what God is saying? How do we know how God is moving? Well, ultimately, when we look back over it, if we have the lens of love, will realize that God moves in different ways, but even with God moving in different ways, there are certain things that reflect his heart. So when you're trying to figure out either someone's motive or other people's actions, or even just the surrounding context of the world around you, if you do not place the lens of God's love on your vision, you will constantly and fully be misguided.

He talked to the church in Philippi and said, listen, operate and move from there, that there is security in reflecting God's heart. And that's what my word is for you today. As you move, let's discern with the spirit of love, the spirit that God gave you. So I'm making decisions, I'm thinking about what's best before we speak, before we act. Before we comment, before we chime in, give our four cents, let's maneuver in a discerning context of the love that God has given you.

I pray this message has been enlightening for you. Go and have an incredible Monday. Be great as we continue to kick off this week. I'll talk to you soon. Be blessed.