I absolutely love when I read a scripture that I’ve read 100 times, but for some reason understand and view it in a new light. I’m going to start by saying that I love Ephesians, but in particularly, chapter 3.
I think we so often hear “The Holy Spirit” and try to avoid the conversation all together. We hear a lot of sermons about God, we hear a lot of sermons about Jesus, we hear a lot about His love, His life, His grace, and His pursuit of us, but why do we try and dance around the subject of the Holy Spirit? Sure, it’s not an easy subject to discuss, but it’s certainly an empowering one. I really pray that wherever I take this blog, that it makes sense, and that together we can see the importance of not just the power of the Holy Spirit, but the abilities we possess because of it.
The few times that I’ve heard sermons about the Holy Spirit or tried to study it for myself, the common denominator is usually the idea of receiving power. The Holy Spirit will help you do this. It will help you do that. It will change this life or that life, and it will guide, guard and direct your life. All of which are true, but this morning as I was reading Ephesians 3:14-20, I think something else dawned on me.
“For this reason 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.” Ephesians 3:14-19 (NIV)
These verses are very much about the power of the Holy Spirit, but I think that the times that I’ve read this previously, I’ve missed such a huge portion of what Paul is trying to show us. So while we recognize the importance of Christ dwelling in our hearts, and we understand that the Holy Spirit enables us to see the love of God, we can’t forget the importance of being filled. Not just filled, but filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. I don’t know about you, but there are some people in my life that I look up to spiritually that are just so full of wisdom, and knowledge, and love, and Jesus, that it literally is an overflow of their actions and their life. I want that. I want to be full of the fullness of God. No one wants to live an empty life, so why do we find contentment in idleness? Why are we not yearning to be filled with the Holy Spirit or with the goodness of God?
I think all to often we (and by we, I’m solely referring to myself and my own actions in hopes that I’m not alone in this) forget the heart of the problems that we face and just try to deal with all of the outcomes and the results. I don’t think we understand just how much we have in Jesus Christ. Do you understand who it is that loves you? Do you understand how much He loves you? I think if we truly got that, we would stop looking at all of our stuff, and our problems, and our circumstances and we’d know what it meant to be so full of the fullness of God. We’d understand what it meant to “go sell all of our possessions” because I think we’d want to. We would be so full, that we would want that love of God so much more than any other thing.
I think I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the problem is that we don’t really grasp how great God is. Much like it talks about in chapter 3 of Ephesians, we don’t understand the depth of God’s love; how wide it is, how vast, how deep, how long, and high. That’s a problem, you guys. We kind of get it, and I think because of that, we kind offollow it. I think if we really understood, it would change us. So I don’t think that when Paul was writing this he was referring to a physical healing or some sort of super natural empowerment, but just an understanding of the love of God that reached the core of his being. Paul prayed for this because he knew that there was nothing he could do physically to make this happen, but instead, he knew that it was something greater. Notice how he bowed to pray. He got on his knees. He humbled himself and he recognized the greatness and the power of God. I’m actually not going to discuss getting on your knees while praying (that’s a whole blog in and of itself), but if you haven’t done that, I would recommend that you try. I think it’s scriptural, I think it’s effective, and I think it’s humbling.
Anyways, back to the Holy Spirit and being full of the fullness of God. There are a lot of things that we need to be aware of and that contribute to the success of this passage, but one thing seems to be the most significant. We have to learn to fall in love with Jesus. We have to want Him and love Him more than anything else — more than our moms, our dads, our family, our friendships, and our stuff. We have to, not just read about the love of God, but comprehend and appreciate the fact the He “so loves” us. So much so that He sacrificed His Son for us. You guys, Jesus left His glory in Heaven to take our place on Calvary. If that alone doesn’t bring you to your knees, maybe you need to reevaluate your definition of love. Having this knowledge of how much God loves us, involuntarily involves falling in love with Jesus. You just can’t help it after that. We see the depth of His love and sin suddenly doesn’t seem so entertaining anymore. It doesn’t satisfy like Jesus does. We give up our wants and our needs, and we surrender our lives to the One who gave it all to us in the first place.
Between you and God, are you sure that Jesus Christ is crazy about you? I know that for me, I’ve been reminded of that my whole life, but to be honest, it’s something that I go in and out of. I forget how much He loves me. I forget how much He wants me. I see my faith as something that I have to earn, and because of that I let the fact that Jesus is madly in love with me slip through. So I ask myself the same question I just asked you. Am I positive that Jesus Christ loves me endlessly?
How much do we think God the Father loves His Son? I think we would all agree that that’s a perfect love, right? Okay, now, how many times do we see movies or read books, and jokingly say, “I just want someone to love me this way, or that way” or we see a couple that we envy their relationship and we think to ourselves, “If only someone would love me like that”? Do me a favor and read this out loud.
“Just as the Father has loved me [Jesus], so have I loved you.” John 15:9
Someone does. Someone is pursuing you today. Someone loves you more than you can fathom. Someone was willing to take your place on a cross. Someone loves you and that someone is Jesus.
I know that’s an incomprehensible love — we can’t just know something like that, but this is where the Holy Spirit comes in! We can be reminded of this love daily because we can be filled with it. We can be full of it. Until we recognize the importance of understanding the love of God, and the value that the Holy Spirit has in our lives, we won’t be filled with the fullness of God.
So to end this, I’ll just say that Jesus is madly in love with you. He wants your heart, He wants your love, He wants your life, and He wants to fill you up with His Spirit. Let him.