“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 really is.” Ephesians 3:18
When this is what I’m looking at as I write, it’s kinda hard NOT to feel God’s love for me. Yet, I still find myself thinking I have to earn His affection. Or I’m somehow not worthy of the good things my heavenly Father has for me. Do ya’ll ever struggle with that? Not fully understanding how much your Lord loves you? I do all the freakin’ time!
First off let me get you folks caught up on where we’re at and what we’re doing. Right now I’m sitting on an island called Ko Samet; it’s right off the coast of Thailand. This is where me and about 75 other world racers will be debriefing. Basically during this time we’ll reflect on the happenings of the past month. It gives us a chance to process how we saw God move in our ministries and how God moved in our own lives. Plus we get to all hang out together and enjoy the beauty of God’s kingdom.
Anyway, this morning I spent a lot of time mediating on God’s love and what it really means to love others, and more importantly, what it truly means to be loved by our heavenly Father. So that’s where my mind was when God directed me to Ephesians 3:17-19. These verses are Paul’s prayers for spiritual empowerment. This is the way the Lord broke it down for me.
Verse 17a – “And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you TRUST in Him.”
Verse 18 – “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 really is.”
Verse 19b – “Then you will be FILLED with the fullness of LIFE and POWER that comes from God.”
Lately I’ve been praying to really know Christ more, to truly understand His love for me. So as I looked at verse 17 it hit me, the only way to invite Jesus “more and more” in my heart is to TRUST Him more. And if I can really learn to TRUST Him with everything, and I mean everything, I’ll get a full UNDERSTANDING of His love for me. And folks once we understand “how wide, how long, how high and how deep his love” for us really is, then we can live in true FREEDOM. That’s what it’s all about my friends – freedom from following our sinful nature, freedom from condemnation of our past sins, freedom from the lies of the enemy, freedom from feeling like we are not worthy. You see once we’re secure in His love, we don’t have to feel unworthy anymore. And that’s the biggest and most successful lie the enemy has on us, is to make you feel unworthy – but that’s BS! It was prophesized in Isaiah Christ would come to set the captives free. (Isa 61:1) And the key Christ uses to unlock our chains is TRUST. Until we trust Him with our decisions, our lives, our hearts, souls and minds – everything, He can’t become “more and more at home” in our hearts. It all starts with TRUST!
But that’s MUCH easier said than done. What does more trust in the Lord look like? That’s what you have to ask yourselves. Because it’s different for each one of you. For me it looked like this. Back in April when I got fired, I trusted that it was a gift from God and so I shot off to Peru to meet the world racers. Then when I got back instead of looking for a job, I trusted that God was calling me to join up with the world racers again, this time in Africa. From there I trusted God, joined the race fulltime and now here I am in Thailand. Each time I took a step, He drew closer to me. However, it’s still a process. I’m still learning to trust Him more and more each day. Sometimes that’s easy, other times, not so much.
This is what the Holy Spirit showed me and taught me this morning and I wanted to pass it along to ya’ll. I love you guys and gals out there and I pray God’s blessing on each one of you!
