Do You Want to Love God More?
So, this sounds like a rhetorical question, right? Who doesn’t want to love God more? Today I would like to look at this subject more deeply. I think some of the ideas about this may surprise you.
The question for us is, how do we actually go about increasing our capacity to love God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
There really is a paradox in that the best way for us to love God more is not by striving and straining to do so. No, the answer is found in getting a deeper understanding of just how much God loves us. It's backwards from how we think it should be.
Ephesians Chapter 3: 14-19 says: For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
This passage is literally filled with superlatives describing God’s great love for us. The idea of having power from the Holy Spirit residing within our inner man is a testimony of this awesome love that is our inheritance. The implication is that this power is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead!!!
Vs. 18 describes having strength to comprehend. That’s the key to loving God more. We respond with thanksgiving and gratefulness because we understand the scandal of God’s mercy and grace towards us. This amazing grace and love that Jesus poured out to redeem us surpasses knowledge. How cool is that?
The scriptures say that God’s ways are higher than our ways, as high as the heavens are above the earth. The context of what is higher is all about his ability to forgive us of our sins, to love us before we even begin to respond to him.
Verse 19 sums it all up, that we may be filled with all of the fullness of God. The visual picture here is an overflowing that a vessel cannot contain.
This is not an attempt to strive to love God more, rather, it is to glimpse this overflow of God’s love and care for us.
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