But it's also global, because the result of such purity of life will be that they'll reap a great harvest of righteousness. It seems to me that when Paul talks about a harvest of righteousness, he's looking beyond our personal righteousness, to the righteousness that will spring up in the hearts of others who see us and are drawn to the gospel like a moth to a flame. It's as though the love we show becomes a seed that's planted in the hearts of those around us. It's like a contagion that spreads on contact. The sort of life he's talking about, you see, a life characterised by love overflowing in knowledge and insight and purity and righteousness, is a very attractive thing.
People love being near people whose character exhibits that sort of love.
Let me suggest that this would be a great thing to pray every day for those on our congregational prayer list. That their love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help them determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ they may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. Paul prays with confidence and joy because he knows that in the end, it's God who determines our future, not our outward circumstances or the various schemes of human beings. He knows that our place in God's family has come about by God's grace alone and that God's grace is sufficient to keep us there, that God can be trusted to see us through. He prays out of the love he has for them, that the same love, the love of Christ would flow out of their hearts and fill them to overflowing.