A final installment on the subject of love.
Take a look at this text; a prayer from Paul the Apostle. It is most intriguing and thought provoking.
…I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3.14-19
Let me walk through it with you…
Take a look at this text; a prayer from Paul the Apostle. It is most intriguing and thought provoking.
…I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3.14-19
Let me walk through it with you…
He prays that we would be
· Strengthened
· With power
· From the Holy Spirit
· In the inner man
Why?
· So that Christ would dwell in our hearts, and
· That we being rooted (strengthened or stabilized by roots)
· and grounded (a solid foundation, to establish)
· On what?
· On AGAPE, on God’s love
And from that place of being stabilized and established on Gods AGAPE love
· That we would be able to comprehend the AGAPE of God
· Its breadth
· It’s length
· It’s height and
· It’s depth
· To know the AGAPE of Christ
Which, according to Vs 19, surpasses knowledge, it is unknowable
So what is Paul saying?
He is saying that through the power of the Holy Spirit
And while being rooted deeply and standing firm on the foundation of God’s love, I must take time, take advantage of the invitation to explore the vastness of God’s love, in every dimension, in every direction.
But as our present day astronomers are finding out, the more they discover, the more they discover there is to discover. The universe, like the Energizer bunny, just keeps going and going... God’s love is unknowable ultimately, it’s just to big.
But by the Holy Spirit we have been given the opportunity to grow in our understanding of it. And as I do, as you do, as we do we are being filled with (lit. being constantly crammed with) the fullness of God.
God is love.
So as we discover this unbridled, unfathomable, unconditional love of God, we are in fact coming to know the nature of God and our own souls are being filled with His fullness, with His nature. For God is love.
Paul ends I Corinthians 13 by saying,
Paul ends I Corinthians 13 by saying,
“But now faith, hope, love, abide these three;
but the greatest of these is love.”
These three great graces abide into eternity, but the greatest of them all is love. In the end, whether in ministry, in family, in friendships, in trials, in victory; it is love that endures.
Oh precious saint-
May the Lord fill us with the knowledge of His great love.
May we encounter that love, experience that love, express that love.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
be with you all.
1 comment:
What a Wonderful LORD we have. Unconditional Love, says it all. Why would anybody reject that? Keep up the Blog, I love hearing what God is doing - Dick Winters
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