Hoping for the Best

Best Wishes

We’ve heard it said, one way or another, that love is simply goodwill towards someone else. “All the best!” or “Best wishes!” we might say. Is this how God loves? Hall-of-fame theologian Francis Turretin asks, “What is the Love of God?” and answers this way:

“From goodness flows love by which he communicates himself to the creature and (as it were) wills to unite himself with and do good to it.” (Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger, vol. 1 [Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992–1997], 241.)

Simply put, love wants what’s best for others.

This is how God loves—this is who God is and always has been. Such was the love that died on the cross in your place, for your sins, that you, though an enemy of God, could be his servant, friend, and adopted child by grace and through faith. Truly, a love that will not let you go.

“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:11, ESV)

Loving One Another

If God loves us in this way, how then should we love one another? Consider Paul’s ministry to the Philippians. He shares with them three things: 1) How he prays for them. 2) What he hopes for them. 3) How he considers them.

How He Prays for Them

Paul’s prayer for the Philippians is significant. He tells them that he prays for them often. What a comfort that is! Hearing that someone prays for you daily is an amazing display of concern for your well-being; it means they love you and are loving you by that act of prayer.

Look closely at what Paul prays for:

“And 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, ESV)

Did you hear the crescendo? The prayer, beginning with an earnest desire for the Philippians’ welfare, rises all the way to the glory and praise of God. What could be better for God’s people than God’s glory? That’s the hope we live and die for (Rom. 5:2, 1 Cor. 10:31, Rev. 21:11). What prayer could be more loving?

What He Hopes for Them

Paul is confident that just as God established good for the Philippians at the beginning of their faith, God will continue to establish good for them until the day of Christ Jesus. This is a rejoicing confidence in the gospel promise of God’s love, which moved God to “identify himself with their welfare.” (Packer, Knowing God, 123)

Apply that quickly. Instead of hoping for healing and relief from pain, sorrow, or suffering for yourself and others, hope for heaven. When you pray, pray for the ongoing work of sanctification to reach its glorious completion in the return of Christ. Lovingly plea, “Make us ready for heaven!” Then, get to work and stir one another up to love and good works “all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Heb. 10:24–25)

How He Considers Them

Look finally at how Paul justifies his own confidence; it’s remarkable. “It is right for me to think/feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart.” The word “feel” in the ESV translation or “think” in the KJV more properly means both thinking, feeling, and even something like determination or will. I like “consider” as a way to get the whole picture: “It is right for me to consider you all in this way because I hold you all in my heart.”

Here is Paul’s commitment to the Philippians: he’s “all in” on them. His mind is set on them, and he carries them in his heart because they are united with him in the grace of God and the work of the gospel. He’ll die for these people. Paul will spend and be spent for their sake.

Therein, we find a final picture of a love that befits Christians! Keep your half-hearted, half-committed, half-baked “love” to yourself, and let Paul’s example lift your eyes to the cross of Christ. Behold the “affection of Christ Jesus” on the cross and see Jesus’ all-in love as He lays down His life for the good of His brothers and the glory of God.

Be like Jesus; go “all in” in love for the brothers.