What is the
connection between Paul’s expression of yearning for the Philippian believers “with the affection of Christ Jesus,”[1] and
the way Paul prayed for the churches? Both “the
affection of Christ Jesus,” and Paul’s prayer for himself and the churches,
focused on God’s place in our inner being.
If Paul had an
inner yearning for the believers when he was away from them, and his
exhortations to them included the reminder that they were, “my brothers, whom I love and long for,”[2]and
he qualified that these yearnings and longings were an expression of “the affection of Christ Jesus” within
him, then Paul is talking about something that is way beyond any of our
limited, self-protective, self-interested longings and affections for anyone in
our lives.
It is easy for
me to understand why so many church-going people would be “restricted in your own affections.”[3]There
are so many stories of rejection and abandonment, of childhood abuse that shuts
down the soul, and of overwhelming heartache, that people naturally restrict
their affections to minimize the pain.
At the same
time, many people know what it is like to watch people they love start to close
their hearts to them based on gossip and slander. This is what Paul saw
happening with the Corinthians as the “super
apostles” spoke against him and his ministry, won over the hearts of the
Corinthians, and succeeded in closing their hearts towards Paul.[4]
With so many
painful experiences filling and surrounding the church, how do we look at Paul’s
example of relating to the churches in “the
affection of Christ Jesus,” and have faith that we could allow our hearts
to follow his example? Answer: pray about this following Paul’s example in
prayer. Paul prayed:
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the
Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that
according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with
power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in
your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may
have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length
and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses
knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.[5]
Consider it
like this: if we will bow our knees before the Father as the head of our
Christian family both in heaven and on earth, and we will wrap our hearts
around the riches of his glory as the source of the answer to our prayers, we
will see why we have every reason to believe that we could be the kind of
people who love and long for one another with the affection of Christ Jesus.
If we will ask
God to grant to us that we would be strengthened with power through his Spirit
in our inner being, we would see the Holy Spirit filling us with the affections
of Christ Jesus. As our sarks lose control of our inner beings, the Holy Spirit
transforms us from within, and we begin to feel and show the fruit of the
Spirit’s presence.
As the Holy Spirit
strengthening us with power in our inner beings brings about the experience of
Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith, guess whose affections will begin
to fill our hearts? With “Christ in you,
the hope of glory,”[6]becoming
the central experience of our hearts, our inner beings, we will have the
affections of Jesus Christ our Lord filling us for one another.
With the Holy Spirit
empowering us from within our inner beings, and Christ Jesus our Lord dwelling
inside our hearts by faith, we come to have the strength to both comprehend and
know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. This comprehension and
knowing of the love of Christ means that the affection of Christ Jesus fills us
from within.
And then, as
we are filled in our inner beings with the Spirit and his empowering strength,
with the indwelling presence of Jesus Christ our Lord, and with the
comprehension and experience of the immeasurable love of Christ, we also come
to “be filled with all the fullness of
God.” If all the fullness of the God who is love fills us, guess what we
will feel for his church? You guessed it, the affection of Christ Jesus.
Most of us
have likely spent enough time grieving all the broken relationships in our
lives. We have grieved the childhood experiences that taught us to protect
ourselves from pain. We know the bondage we have felt to old thoughts, beliefs,
and feelings that have kept us from loving one another as Jesus loves us. What
we need is to call on God in prayer to do what he alone can do.
We must begin
with the faith that God wants every one of his children to feel that they are
loved with the affection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to be free to feel that
same affection for the rest of the church family. When we consider that the one
who is Father over us all, has such riches of glory as make it impossible for
him to fail, and has given us the prayer to pray according to his will, it is
not too difficult to see how to work out our salvation with fear and trembling
based on the things that God is working in us both to will and to work for his
good pleasure.[7]
If it is God’s
good pleasure that we feel within us the affection of Christ Jesus, and he has
given us the prayer to pray to connect with his work and will, then, beloved
brothers, let us pray!
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures
are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
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