PAUL'S PRAYER FOR THE EPHESIANS - PART 3

WEDNESDAY 25 JANUARY 2023

Paul's prayer for the saints in Ephesus points us to the quality of spiritual understanding and supernatural experience that should characterise the life of a Christian in the Kingdom of light. More so, Christ's love unveils the foundation and character of our Christian life in this Kingdom. More below!

Reference: Ephesians 3:18-19 New Living Translation (NLT) "And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God."

Beloved, the next line in Paul's prayer says, "May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully," which I recommend as having the richest experiential knowledge of it. It's not enough for the Holy Spirit to shed the love of Christ abroad in your heart, you must relate with the love, and immerse yourself deeply, in its very sweetness and efficacy, through the power of the Holy Spirit, strengthening you from within.

The essential idea is this: If Christ's love is dear to your heart, show a deep interest in it and keep yourself in it by living and working it out in your Christian walk. Being conscious of this love moulds us to become Christ-like, lifts us, enlightens us, guides us, and constrains us to function like Him, by the help of the Spirit. The beauty of experiencing Christ's love is that it will cause you to rise to a height of uncommon confidence because its expression is traced to the influence of the Holy Spirit. It finds demonstration and bearing through us as a result of our constant fellowship with the Godhead. Therefore, it is the earthly experience of the effects of our true communion with God because we have been highly charged and saturated with the message of Christ's love, just as it was manifested in Him, while on earth.

When we get ourselves fully involved in Christ's love, it will begin to control or compel us to do the will of God. We just find ourselves responding to God's Word and fulfilling His good pleasure. 1st Corinthians 5:14-15 reads, "For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised" (ESV).

Now watch this: One of the things that persuaded Paul to come to the conclusion in the above verse is the fact that he considered the love of Christ, and not just the term, but also, the weight, the depth, the magnitude and the sacrifice involved, bearing in mind that He died for all - not just for few, but for all humankind. For this reason, he submitted to the control of this love, which means, he could not live for himself but for Christ who died for all and was raised for our justification.

Once we get to the point where the love of Christ controls us, we find ourselves functioning on earth as His ambassadors or representatives, evangelising and participating in all manner of good works, operating as peacemakers, loving others genuinely, applying our faith in the Word, pleasing God in our way of life, relying on and partaking of His grace, thereby becoming more like Christ in our hearts and actions, and we do these things with inner sense of joy because of what Christ has done for us on the cross. In doing so, we're experiencing and growing in this perfect love, which is too great to understand fully. Stay tuned for part 4. Shalom!

Scripture Reading - Lamentations 3:22-23; John 13:34-35; Galatians 2:20; 1 John 3:1.

Exuberant Declaration: It's a great privilege to know that there is room for me to understand and experience the love of Christ, which is too wide, long, high, and deep in consideration. Joyfully, I submit to this love and function accordingly on a daily basis. Therefore, I'm eternally grateful for its expanse in my heart, which controls my life and empowers me to live a successful Christian life on earth. Blessed be God!