Last week we started a series about the Wonder of Discernment. We mentioned the importance of taking time to slow down and spend with God to seek discernment. This may be where we start, but the Wonder of Discernment doesn’t end there.

Giving ourselves space to seek God and ask for discernment, and time to think and discern is a great starting place. If we just think about things though, recognize and observe and seek wisdom, we aren’t actually practicing discernment. There is a difference between being discerning and practicing discernment. I can know the wise thing is but if I don’t actually choose to do it, then I’m not really being discerning. It’s like a child who knows the right thing to do but doesn’t do it, or the parent or leader who says, or implies, do as I say and not as I do. In each case discernment is not being used.

In Philippians 1:9-10, Paul encouraged those in the church at Philippi, and us today, with these words:

“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”

There are several important things that we see in Paul’s prayer for the believers in these verses.

First, that knowledge and discernment work together. They work best with one another. It is possible to have knowledge without discernment, but knowledge without discernment isn’t nearly as useful, helpful or practical. At times it might be possible to have some discernment without knowledge, but knowledge can definitely help strengthen and equip for discernment. Together though, discernment helps to filter and apply knowledge. Basically, we don’t want to just try to stuff ourselves with knowledge and think that will solve everything, but we also don’t want to bury our heads in the sand and say I’ll just ask God for discernment and everything will be fine. Instead we should continue to grow in knowledge while seeking understanding and discernment to apply the knowledge in ways that honor and glorify God and His purpose.

We also see in these verses that discernment is a loving action. Paul prayed that their love would abound in knowledge and discernment. When we get these out of order, things start to go haywire. When our knowledge abounds and that is what is driving us, we can tend to get puffed up. It begins to get easy to lose the perspective of love and instead become condescending or even bullying with our knowledge. Likewise, if discernment is abounding and driving us instead of love, we can easily become judgmental and condemning. Both knowledge and discernment are to be aspects of our abounding love through God. Letting love fuel or drive us, knowledge and discernment can then help guide us and others in ways that are helpful and not hurtful, ways that demonstrate the love of God and principles of truth in love.

Paul also gives us a reason for the importance of this discernment: “so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless.” As we can see when we get things out of the perspective of love, even great things like discernment can become problems. When we keep these in the order that they should be, discernment practiced in abounding love enables us to live the lives that God is calling us to. Lives that honor and glorify and Him, and lives that that reflect His image to those around us.

Discernment is an important aspect of our Christian witness or testimony. It is important for us as believers, as people, and as leaders. Discernment practiced in love sets us apart in a beautiful way. This is God’s plan for us as we follow Him, and it is something that the world around us needs desperately to see.

This is the third in our series of Holy Week devotionals. The last couple of days we talked about Palm Sunday and what happened in the Temple.

The middle part of this week leading to the arrest, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus doesn’t have events quite as clearly labeled, yet we know a lot of things were happening. Matthew has five chapters between the Triumphal Entry and the Passover meal. Mark has about two and a half chapters. Luke has two chapters, and John has half a chapter.

So what do we find in those chapters? Jesus did a lot of teaching. He also did some praying, weeping over the city, and giving warnings to the religious leaders, but a lot of teaching took place during those days. Some of the teaching happened while He was being questioned by religious leaders trying to set Him up and trap Him, some of it happened through parables and observations in the Temple, and some of it took place as He tried to explain to the disciples what was about to happen and what would be coming in the future.

In the midst of all of this, both Matthew and Mark give the account of Jesus teaching about the most important commandments in response to being questioned by religious leaders and scribes. In Mark 12:28-34 it says:

I for one am so thankful for the scribe that asked Jesus this question. To have Jesus so concisely wrap up all of the Law and the heart of God so clearly into these two commandments  is so helpful. Because life gets crazy and busy and confusing and challenging for all us, there are times when we all feel a little lost. When we’re confused and don’t know what direction to go, this is a good place to come back to. If we remember who God is and focus on loving Him with everything in us and then focus on loving others well, that’s a great direction to start. It might not solve all of our problems. It might not give us perfect clarity on what our future should look like, but it gets pretty close. There’s a lot that we can do while honoring those two commandments, but it also helps us see that there’s a lot that doesn’t matter as much as we might think it does.

As we draw ever closer to Easter, how is your relationship with God? Are you loving Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? Are you loving others well? Let’s follow Jesus’s example and love well this Easter week.