BIBLE STUDY
Strengthened by Major Lynn Gibbs considers the dimensions of God’s love STUDY PASSAGE: EPHESIANS 3:14–21
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THINK Saturday night television viewing is at its best when Strictly Come Dancing comes on our screens. Colour and vibrancy bring the show to life and stir my desire to be a part of it somehow. Some time ago, along with good friends, I signed up at our community centre to learn the basics of salsa. What an experience! It was fun, embarrassing and certainly tiring. By the end of the lessons we were still a little rough but had a good basic knowledge of the dance. We have never danced since.
QUESTION Have you ever learnt something and then not continued to practise? O
In the early chapters of Ephesians, Paul outlines the basic truths of the Christian life – who we are in Christ and the incredible, unlimited resources we have in him. He urges his readers not to stop there but to continue to claim those truths and live their lives by them. QUESTION O What is Paul’s prayer for the Church? It’s a bit like infusing tea leaves or herbs in hot water. Paul desires his readers to be so infused by the power of the Holy Spirit that they are ready for an intimate relationship with Jesus. QUESTION O What further request of God does Paul make on behalf of the Ephesian Christians? Paul wants his readers to be rooted and grounded in love. How we experience the love of Christ will be reflected in our love for others. In The Complete Works of C. H. Spurgeon – Volume 12, influential Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon
Through the week with Salvationist – a devotional thought for each day by Major Melv yn Knott
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Salvationist 16 March 2019
expands on Paul’s two expressions to describe this abiding love as ‘rooted, like a living tree which lays hold upon the soil, twists itself round the rocks, and cannot be upturned: grounded, like a building which has been settled, as a whole, and will never show any cracks or flaws in the future through failures in the foundation’. QUESTIONS O When does the love of God begin towards us? O How long will it continue? O Can you think of songs and Scripture that remind us of the extent of God’s love? Paul reminds us of the dimensions of God’s limitless love – width, length, height and depth (see v18). When we stand on a riverbank and look at the water we cannot see all aspects of the river. Yet we know it has these dimensions. So, too, God’s river of love reaches and covers over all our sin. As songwriter Annie Johnson Flint reminds us: ‘His love has no limits, his grace has no measure,/ His power no boundary known unto men’ (SASB 30). If we can begin to comprehend the magnitude of that love, then we too can begin to love everybody.
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MONDAY
TUESDAY
I’m going to make my life into a melody,/ I’m going to praise my Saviour all day long,/ I’m going to make my life into a symphony,/ A glorious symphony of song./ For God will fill me with his power,/ My pathway trace;/ He’s going to make my life into a miracle,/ A mighty miracle of grace. (SASB 857)
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Hebrews 9:14)
Born of the Spirit with life from above/ Into God’s family divine,/ Justified fully through Calvary’s love,/ O what a standing is mine!/ And the transaction so quickly was made/ When as a sinner I came,/ Took of the offer of grace he did proffer,/ He saved me, O praise his dear name! (SASB 307)
