The Love of God

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 3:14-21

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
2nd Corinthians 3:5-6

Our sufficiency is from God. Not from our own works, our own righteousness, or our own goodness. In writing to the Ephesians Paul makes a direct connection between the love of Christ and being filled with all the fullness of God. The fullness of God is a wonderful, awesome concept. In John 10:10 Jesus said He came that we would "have life and have it more abundantly". He is our abundance, our source, our hope, our help, our healer. He literally is everything we need.

And yet most of us struggle to grasp just how much God loves us because we are natural legalists. What do I mean by that? Look around. Life teaches us over and over again that you get what you deserve. If you work hard you get rewarded. If you do what is right people commend you. If you do wrong people frown upon you. Life pretty much operates on sowing and reaping. And yes, we do need to understand that, or life will bite us pretty hard.

The problem we have is that God's love doesn't work that way. God's love caused Him to pour out His grace and now we receive what He has done for us by faith. Ephesians 2:4-6 says, "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."

We can't approach God based on what we have done or not done. My relationship with Him is not based on my goodness but His goodness. We fall short. We mess up. We do dumb things. We make mistakes and yes, we sometimes sin. Because we do not grasp the love of God we open the door for guilt and condemnation.

The letter kills. We are called to a love relationship. Love cannot thrive in an environment of fear. 1st John 4:17-18 says, "Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love."

The abundance, the fullness we have in Him, only comes in grasping His love. The prayer Paul prayed in Ephesians is so critical for us. Note that Paul was writing this to believers. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that "Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him".

We thing of faith in terms of believing for things we are praying about but what if we began to think in terms of actually believing what the Word of God says about how much He loves His children?

As we gain confidence in His love we gain confidence in His good work and help for our lives.