Ian & Jocelyn Barker

“…so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

Paul is in the middle of his prayer after presenting his request for the springing up of love that comes from experiencing God and understanding His model of love. Now he presents the result and reason for his request. Real love for one another works righteousness into our lives readying us for our resurrection.

Part of the reason that the love he prays for is love for our neighbor, is because this love causes us to be sincere, blameless, and righteous. This righteousness is being worked into us through our actions and attitudes in relation to one another. Love that comes from God is a love that helps us to see and rejoice in those things that are excellent in one another. Paul says that love “does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth” (1 Cor. 13:6). Have you ever thought about what makes you love another person? When I look negatively at a person, this drastically effects my attitude and actions towards them. But if I see the excellent things, I am able to treat them with all of the fruits of love that 1 Corinthians 13 describes.

When we begin to look at the excellencies in one another, it must expand our idea of God’s love and the way that He looks at humans who are in Christ. In God’s economy, the things that are excellent in me and in you are the budding virtues of faith and righteousness. Though we are dark in our sin, we are lovely because of Christ’s righteousness (Song 1:5). But the amazing thing about being clothed in Christ’s righteousness, is that we actually begin to live out of that righteousness and begin to take on the righteous acts of Christ. So though we dark as we stumble out of immaturity, we are lovely to Him because we continue to say “Yes” to righteousness and the process of becoming like Him. This is our hidden glory that only God can see (Col. 3:3). This is how we can approve of the excellent things in one another; by seeing each other the way God sees us.