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

Look at that last part: “That you may be… filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ…”

I, who am not righteous, have been made righteous in God’s eyes, because as God looks at me He sees only the righteousness of Christ in me. It’s as though I had never sinned. That’s what the Bible calls “justification.” It happened the moment I received His forgiveness for Jesus’ sake.

Now, day by day, guided by His Spirit, I’m learning to walk in love. His Word teaches me what real love is, and by experience I learn to discern the difference between what God calls love and what the world, the flesh and the devil call “love.” And slowly my life becomes filled with, characterized by, the fruit of that righteousness that was imputed to me, for Jesus’ sake.

The righteousness of God, planted in my heart by the Lord Jesus, is bearing fruit: the “fruit of the Spirit.” I’m slowly becoming pure and blameless, just as I was declared to be at the beginning, for Christ’s sake. It’s a process. It’s what the Bible calls “Sanctification.”

Lord, by Your Holy Spirit dwelling in me, lead me, teach me, give me the discernment I need to walk in Your kind of love, in every situation and with each person You bring to me today. Amen.

Pastor Dan Giles