… so that you may be able to discern what is best …
Summary: There is a reason we need help to discern what is best. To find out what that reason is, we have to go back to the very beginning of history.
To discern what is best requires love that abounds “more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.”
Why?
Why do we need godly love (agápē) to discern what is best?
Let’s review how we arrived at this point, and perhaps that will provide the answer.
In the beginning (Genesis 1:1), God created man and woman and placed them in a garden where they didn’t have to discern what was best except for one tree in the middle of the garden. God said, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:16-17).
God gave them clear instructions. That was the only “knowledge” that they needed. No “depth of insight” was required.
Of course, you know the story. The serpent slithers into the garden and wisthpers to Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:3). The conversation goes downhill from there.
At one point, the serpent promises that, “…when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). What he didn’t say was that they would be able to discern what is best. Knowing good and evil is not the same thing as being able to tell the difference.
When Paul prays for our ability to love, he is really praying that we become more like our Father (1 John 4:8). Becoming like God is only possible because God shares himself with us (John 14:26). It is the Holy Spirit within us that guides our thinking and teaches us what is best.
Godly love abounds in God’s knowledge and depth of insight. He himself teaches us the difference between right and wrong.
In the Garden of Eden, God told Adam plainly that he was not to eat from the Forbidden Tree. Adam had one rule. One. Life was infinitely simple. Stay away from the forbidden tree, and everything else is yours.
He couldn’t do it.
Instead, we live in a corrupted world, full of sickness, pain, and evil of every kind. God’s rules are still simple, but they don’t erase the curse of Adam and Eve’s disobedience. To discern what is best, we need love that abounds more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.
Application: Focus on loving God above all else. Everything else then falls into line.
Food for Thought: Why is knowing “good and evil” without having discernment so dangerous?
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