Ephesians 3:14-19
Here is the apostle Paul, praying for all “the faithful in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 1:1): that we might go ever deeper into our experience and understanding of God:
“I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Note that in order to explain “all the fullness of God”, it is not enough to talk merely of “God”; we need to know Him as Father (v15), Son (v17) and Holy Spirit (v16). God is Triune!
Christians know God as ”Father” - not because we are projecting an image or concept of fatherhood into the heavens, but because He is by His very nature a God of relationship, and the spiritual fountainhead of all human family relationships. He is “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:3); and because He has adopted us as His children (Ephesians 1:5), He is our Father too! And so we stand to inherit all “His glorious riches” (Ephesians 1:18).
But the only way to know God as Father is to confess His Son as Lord (John 14:6). To “invite Christ into your life” is the very beginning of the Christian life - but only the beginning! He must take up permanent residence in our hearts, in the very centre of our being, the “driver’s seat” of our lives. And we must understand that He is not a guest (not even an honoured guest) but the Master. He must be in charge!
God loves us; but it is Christ who brings that love to us and actualises it in our experience. His love for us is where we begin our journey, the motivation for our pilgrimage; it is the soil in which our faith grows. But we don’t leave love behind as we mature in our faith; instead, we move deeper into it and discover that Christ’s love has no limits! For it is wide enough to embrace every tribe and nation on this teeming planet, long enough to encompass all eternity (from past to future), deep enough to support the lowest sinner and high enough to lift us to the dizzying heights of the heavenly places.
We can’t learn about the love of Christ from a textbook or course, but only through the work of the Holy Spirit. It is He who brings God’s tremendous power and inexhaustible riches right into the core of our being, where they can transform us. It is through His Spirit that Christ dwells in us; it is through the Spirit that we have fellowship with both the Father and the Son.
And we are also bound by the Spirit into fellowship with other believers. For just as the one God is a ‘community’ of three, so His Church is a community, rich in diversity but all sharing the same family likeness. It is not good for us to be alone; we are made for one another, and we need each other. There are many good reasons to belong to a local church, but one of them is that it enables us to get to know God better! For God is so great, so beyond human comprehension, that no single individual can either experience His fullness or express it in their own life. Only within the fellowship of His holy people can we begin to get a handle on what it means to be loved by Him.
Here is the apostle Paul, praying for all “the faithful in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 1:1): that we might go ever deeper into our experience and understanding of God:
“I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Note that in order to explain “all the fullness of God”, it is not enough to talk merely of “God”; we need to know Him as Father (v15), Son (v17) and Holy Spirit (v16). God is Triune!
Christians know God as ”Father” - not because we are projecting an image or concept of fatherhood into the heavens, but because He is by His very nature a God of relationship, and the spiritual fountainhead of all human family relationships. He is “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:3); and because He has adopted us as His children (Ephesians 1:5), He is our Father too! And so we stand to inherit all “His glorious riches” (Ephesians 1:18).
But the only way to know God as Father is to confess His Son as Lord (John 14:6). To “invite Christ into your life” is the very beginning of the Christian life - but only the beginning! He must take up permanent residence in our hearts, in the very centre of our being, the “driver’s seat” of our lives. And we must understand that He is not a guest (not even an honoured guest) but the Master. He must be in charge!
God loves us; but it is Christ who brings that love to us and actualises it in our experience. His love for us is where we begin our journey, the motivation for our pilgrimage; it is the soil in which our faith grows. But we don’t leave love behind as we mature in our faith; instead, we move deeper into it and discover that Christ’s love has no limits! For it is wide enough to embrace every tribe and nation on this teeming planet, long enough to encompass all eternity (from past to future), deep enough to support the lowest sinner and high enough to lift us to the dizzying heights of the heavenly places.
We can’t learn about the love of Christ from a textbook or course, but only through the work of the Holy Spirit. It is He who brings God’s tremendous power and inexhaustible riches right into the core of our being, where they can transform us. It is through His Spirit that Christ dwells in us; it is through the Spirit that we have fellowship with both the Father and the Son.
And we are also bound by the Spirit into fellowship with other believers. For just as the one God is a ‘community’ of three, so His Church is a community, rich in diversity but all sharing the same family likeness. It is not good for us to be alone; we are made for one another, and we need each other. There are many good reasons to belong to a local church, but one of them is that it enables us to get to know God better! For God is so great, so beyond human comprehension, that no single individual can either experience His fullness or express it in their own life. Only within the fellowship of His holy people can we begin to get a handle on what it means to be loved by Him.
