Experiencing God’s love…

Herbert Lake at Icefields Parkway by Florian Fuchs

Good morning, beloved,

The life of the beloved..I have spent this morning contemplating this life in the light of a passage given to me this morning. When I get to heaven, I really want to meet Paul. Truly living, asking the Lord to make His home in our heart. This song kept coming in my mind as I was studying a passage in Ephesians.

Come, Lord, come make my heart Your home. Come and be everything I have and all I know. Search me through and through til my heart becomes a home for You..

Ephesians 3:

¹⁶ May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the [Holy] Spirit [Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality].

Dobratsch in autumn by Florian Fuchs

¹⁷ May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love,

¹⁸ That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it];

¹⁹ [That you may really come] to know [practically, ^[e]through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses ^[f]mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] ^[g]unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and ^[h]become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!

Johnston Canyon-Lower Falls (Banff National Park) by Florian Fuchs

²⁰ Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we

[dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]—

²¹ To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen (so be it).

What are the gifts found in a relationship with the Father?

Starting at verse 16, we find that God has a rich treasury..

of glory!

of strength!

mighty power by the Holy Spirit!

indwelling in our innermost being!

We are very blessed, are we not? We have His glory, His strength, His mighty power, His Holy Spirit…all indwelling in us.

Yet, the next verse is life to me as well. Christ makes His home..brings His coffee cup, His pillow…ok, maybe not His pillow, but I gotta believe coffee will be available in heaven. He makes my heart, your heart His home. Oh, precious one, (I’m pulling a Kay, there) do you feel alone at times? Put your hand on your heart and listen. The beating of your heart can be your prompting…His home. You are never alone.

Waterfowl Lakes at Icefields Parkway by Florian Fuchs

So plant your roots deep in Him, for the roots find their strength deep in His love. His overwhelming love for you and I. Allow that truth to wash all over you.

Now about that alone feeling, the next verse indicates a way to discover and be filled with His love. Community: together with all the saints..experiencing His love in community. My family, my church, my dear friends help me understand Christ’s love in a powerful way. Is it perfect? No, Paul isn’t discussing that..He is saying we can understand “…the breadth and length and height and depth..” of agape (love) as defined by Blue Letter Bible:  affection, good will, love, benevolence, brotherly love.

We comprehend agape when we comprehend love in community. When we are real, when we open our lives up to the beloved, when we allow people into our mess…then can there be ministry. When God leads me to pray for someone, I feel the blessing more than anyone else. God’s love pouring through me to minister to His church..it’s not about me. It’s about showing the love of Jesus. Allowing His Spirit to move.

When people ask, how can I help? I need to be humble and take the offer. Say yes. We forget that when we are the ones helping how blessed we feel…allow others the gift of that blessing. So precious, so beautiful, so Jesus.

For then we comprehend His love, this just gets me so excited, the blessing is two-fold. We understand, the one who helps us or we help, brings an understanding of God’s love for us. If you don’t have that experience, you miss the richness, the depth of His agape.

Think of it, our church can experience “.. the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself!” How about that? Are you going to allow Satan‘s lies to keep you from this? Are you going to live under the chains of unforgiveness? Petty arguments? What is keeping you from experiencing His love?

Don’t let another day go by…find community, seek it, pray for it, hope…the day we chose to leave the mega church and find a little home church was a turning point in our lives. Don’t get me wrong. I loved that church. But we needed community, where if you don’t show up, people began calling. People know your kids, know your requests, give help, give hugs, welcome you like family.

Yes, Satan will do everything in his power to hide that truth from you. But this love is real, and it can be found. As I type this, the sun is breaking over the houses, flooding my eyes with beautiful beams of light. Allow His Light to shine upon you and fill you with His love.

Pray on. Pray on.

 

Good morning, friends,

Well, my boy is in surgery. I’m sure he’s doing great. I have thought this morning about a difficult day I had on Sunday. I can’t tell you how much I was swamped by worry and doubt and fear. And then as I began to ponder my post for today, things just started to fall together.

Our assistant Pastor (right title? no clue..) led us through some wonderful passages during Sunday School but the one that stood out to me most was in Ephesians 5

..ever be filled and stimulated with the [Holy] Spirit.

¹⁹ Speak out to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, offering praise with voices [^[e]and instruments] and making melody with all your heart to the Lord,

²⁰ At all times and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.

What struck me about the passage was how if we are first filled and stimulated with the Spirit what a different direction we take in our thoughts, actions and so on. The Spirit is so critical to the next part, the rest cannot happen without a filling of the Spirit.

I must have studied this passage earlier because I had written this passage in the margins.

Exodus 27

²⁰ You shall command the Israelites to provide you with pure oil of crushed olives for the light, to cause it to burn continually [every night].

²¹ In the Tent of Meeting [of God with His people], outside the veil which sets apart the Testimony, Aaron and his sons shall keep it burning from evening to morning before the Lord. It shall be a statute to be observed on behalf of the Israelites throughout their generations.

The oil was to never go out. It was to continually be filled and so the light will always burn.

If we are expecting to have a life filled with the Spirit, we need to live our lives intentionally asking the Spirit to fill our lives. Keeping His Word close to our hearts. Then look at the next part of Ephesians…

Speak out psalms to one another. We need to be speaking the Word to one another. We need to be encouraging one another with hymns, psalms and other songs. Yet, I would also say we need to encourage our own souls with the ministry of the Word. The ministry of songs, hymns…it cannot be overemphasized.

When fear creeps over our hearts, when life circumstances threaten to rock our boat…give glory to God!

At all times, giving thanks. Just like the oil, burning bright because the Word, the hymns, the songs and the real process of giving thanks. Saying thank you. This seems so simple yet it is transformational.

So as we understand the Word of God more and more, as we are filled by His Spirit, as we cling to the truth we can further understand the deeper meanings of Jesus’ teachings and the relationship of the New Testament and Old. Do you see what is happening? We are taking the focus off of ourselves and placing it where it belongs. On Him. When we worry, we sin. Plain and simple. When we get angry and blow up, we sin. When we gossip, we sin. Yet, if we are filling our minds with all that Ephesians 5 is saying, then the Spirit is guiding and we are living free. No chains on me!

Allow me to quote Chuck Smith:

And they have been interpreting the law to govern the actions of man, where God intended the law to be speaking to the attitudes of man. Thus, in the way that they were interpreting the law, they were able to fulfill it. But in the way that the law was originally intended, because it was intended to govern the spirit of man, the law was actually intended to make the whole world guilty before God and to show man’s guilt. But rather then their reading the law and feeling guilty before God, seeking the mercy and the grace of God, they were so interpreting the law as having fulfilled the law, and thus being very pompous and very righteous and very critical of everybody else. And they were interpreting the law so that they were having this tremendous attitude of self-righteousness and pride looking down then upon everybody else.

And it was manifested, as Jesus said, when the Pharisee went into the temple and said, “Oh Father, I thank you I’m not like other men, for I fast and I pray” and you know, he’s telling God all of his good things. And Jesus said there was a sinner that went into the temple and he wouldn’t even lift his eyes toward heaven but with head bowed he just smote on his chest and said, “Oh God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:11-13). And Jesus said he went away justified and forgiven. Where the first guy, you know, his prayers meant nothing to God. Now, that’s because they were interpreting the law in a wrong way, only to govern the outward actions of man and not to deal with the spirit of all.

We can look at the law also remember:

And you see the difference where the way Jesus was interpreting it; it made us all guilty before God. The way they were interpreting it, it made them very pompous and self-righteous. But the way Jesus was interpreting it; it makes us all guilty. And that’s exactly what the law was intended to do, to make the whole world guilty before God, so that we would not seek to come before God in our own righteousness but that we would seek that righteousness that God has provided for us, that we might have that standing before God in the righteousness before God, in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So the law was a schoolmaster to drive us to Jesus Christ.

Love it! Well, Noah is starting to wake up. So I wanted to continue on…pray on. Pray.