and 17

Strengthened by

Major Lynn Gibbs considers the dimensions of God’s love

STUDY PASSAGE: EPHESIANS 3:14–21

ITHINK 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 O Have you ever learnt something and then not continued to practise?

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 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.

Through the week with Salvationist – a devotional thought for each day by Major Melv yn Knott SUNDAY 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) MONDAY 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) TUESDAY 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)

the Spirit

‘‘ 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

’’

QUESTION O How great is the love of Christ?

The definitive verse, John 3:16, records: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’

This is God’s great love for everyone, and his gracious plan of salvation for the world.

The English eccentric Julian Ellis Morris liked to dress as a tramp and sell toiletries door to door. After a day’s work, he would return to his mansion, change into expensive clothes and have his chauffeur drive him in a limousine to an exclusive restaurant.

Sometimes, some Christians live like this, spending their day-to-day lives in apparent poverty and only occasionally experiencing the vast riches of God’s glory.

God does not want us to live in spiritual poverty. Rather, he wants us to share with him in his riches. The love of Christ lifts us to the heavenly places and draws us upward in worship, where we are seated with Christ (see Ephesians 2:6). The depth of God’s love refers to its intensity, as demonstrated by Jesus’ humiliating death on the cross (see Philippians 2:8). The more we grasp the dimensions of God’s love, the closer we become to him, the more we are strengthened and the less concerned we are about the decline of our physical bodies.

So ask big! God can do immeasurably more than we can ever imagine. Every day, we need the Spirit of God to revitalise, refresh and renew us.

As Paul prays for Christians to grasp God’s love ‘with all the Lord’s holy people’ (v18), and ‘throughout all generations’ (v21), we see that Christian living is not a solitary lifestyle. It is as though he is saying that it is impossible for one person to grasp the total extent of Christ’s love.

Together, however, we have a greater understanding and experience.

MAJOR GIBBS IS DIVISIONAL LEADER FOR LEADER DEVELOPMENT, YORKSHIRE SOUTH WITH HUMBER

WEDNESDAY ‘If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.’

( John 14:15–17)

Salvationist 16 March 2019 17 THURSDAY Gracious Lord, thy grace apply,/ Both to save and sanctify;/ All my life wilt thou control,/ Calmly ordering the whole,/ That the world may ever see/ Christ, and only Christ, in me. (SASB 578) FRIDAY I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth. (Psalm 121:1 and 2) SATURDAY Nothing now can rob God’s servant/ Of the peace that he bequeaths,/ Nothing take away the strength his presence breathes./ Of the everlasting arms of love I’m daily made aware,/ And his precious Holy Spirit hears my prayer, my prayer./ Of the everlasting arms of love I’m daily made aware,/ And his precious Holy Spirit hears my prayer.

(SASB 316) Prayer Father God, guide us to recognise the actions of your Spirit as we walk through this week. Open our eyes to see your Spirit guiding, that through our daily events we would see your presence and power in evidence.