Joni And Friends Daily Devotional 25 June 2024, Tuesday Message
TOPIC: Wedding Afterthoughts
“This is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.” – Philippians 1:9-10
You’ve seen it happen. Your sister falls head over heels in love with a guy who, you think, is a jerk. Your roommate throws common sense to the wind and makes a fool of herself for the new man at the office. Or maybe you have fallen for Mr. Right only to have your family say he’s all wrong. How do you know you’re on the right track? What plumb line do you have against which to validate your feelings?
It’s hard to balance love’s emotions with knowledge and depth of insight. Our emotions rarely have much to do with head knowledge. Instead, we tend to charge in with lots of heart foolishness.
You’ve heard that old saying “Love is blind,” but God expects us to have “depth of insight,” or twenty-twenty vision, when it comes to genuine love. You’ve also heard the saying “Hearts rule.” But God says our love should be guided by our head, or as today’s verse says, “abound more and more in knowledge.” By sifting our love through the sieve of knowledge and depth of insight, we are able to discern what is best—or who is best, if we’re trying to pick our life partner.
Regardless of your marital status or the state of your love life, make certain your love is balanced with twenty-twenty vision and lots of wisdom. That combo will enable you to understand how to love in a genuine and God-honoring way, without saying or doing foolish things.
PRAY: Keep me from emotional decisions, Father. Rather enable me to interlace my feelings with knowledge and insight, I want my choices in love to honor you and to bless me and my loved one.
Joni Eareckson Tada is an American evangelical Christian author, radio host, artist, and founder of Joni and Friends, an organization “accelerating Christian ministry in the disability community”