Phil 1:9 – And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
I think Paul is praying for the Philippians to grow in their love of God. And the more we know God and gain insight into His character, the more we are going to love Him.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Gaining Knowledge of God can happen through Bible study, worship, preaching, prayer, and Sunday school.<\/p>\n\n\n
But it can also happen any <\/i>time and any <\/i>where.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I remember\ndistinctly a beautiful moment I had at a gas station as I was filling up my car. Very routine. I was just out of college and living and\nworking in southern California for a few months.<\/p>\n\n\n
I don’t remember where I was going or how long I had been out, but I must have been missing my college friends. I was thinking about my best friend, Mark, in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n
Mark and I enjoyed a friendship that was solid and deep and tumultuous.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I say tumultuous\nbecause Mark had what you call a \u201cbad temper\u201d. He would admit this himself.\nToday he is totally mellow \u2013 and that\u2019s not just the influence of living in\nCalifornia, it\u2019s God\u2019s work in his life.<\/p>\n\n\n
Anyway, we\nwere good friends, but even as nice of a person as I am, I would occasionally poke the bear, usually unintentionally. Over the years, I had provoked Mark to cuss me out now and then and to physically push me around. Once Mark had left me a message on a post-it note on the top of my dresser \u2013 held in place with\nhis pocket knife.<\/p>\n\n\n
Anyway, I\ntell you all that to say that in spite of it all, I still loved Mark and I\nmissed him.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
As I was thinking about fact as I stood that night in California beside the gas pump, out of the blue I heard God saying, \u201cYou know how much you love Mark in spite of\nhis flaws? I love YOU so much more \u2026 in spite of all of your flaws. I know\nevery single one and I love you anyway. I want you to know: you do not love\nyour best friend more than I love you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
That was all He said. But as I got back behind the steering wheel, something had shifted noticeably in my faith.<\/p>\n\n\n
I had always struggled with believing that God loved me. Now I knew <\/i><\/b>something about God that I had only hoped for in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n
I have no doubt today that gas station moment altered my life.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Phil 1:9 – And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight. I think Paul is praying for the Philippians to grow in their love of God. And the more we know God and gain insight into His character, the more we are going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8544,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8543\/revisions\/8544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}