Fw: wanting the best

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Rob Smith <toanosmith@yahoo.com>
To: Rob Smith <rsmith@mycwa.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 7, 2017 7:24 AM
Subject: wanting the best

It is good to care about others.  It is good to want the very best for our friends and for all we know.  What does the best look like for our friends?  What should we pray for?  The apostle Paul had a great love for folks in the church at Philippi.  They had supported him faithfully and now he was in a Roman prison.  But rather than crying to them for help or despair he spends his time teaching them and praying for them.  He tells us what he is praying for when he prays for them:

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Philippians 1:⁹ And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, ¹⁰ so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, ¹¹ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

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That love may abound...that wisdom would grow...that life choices would be made well...that lives would reflect a pure focus on Jesus...that daily actions would show the indwelling presence of Christ...keeping in mind that there will be a day when Christ fills everyone's experience, to welcome and to judge.

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There seemed to be no distractions in Paul's life...Christ truly filled his mind and his motivations.  And Christ had given him a love for others.  Consider the previous verse:

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 ⁸ For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.

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blessings and love,

Rob Smith