City Life Starter

Written by Blesson Selvanesan

The Word

₁₇ that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ₁₈may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— ₁₉to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:17-19 (NKJV)

Interpretation

In this prayer for the Ephesian believers, Paul prays that they will let Jesus dwell in their hearts through faith. They have accepted Jesus Christ as their risen Messiah. God displayed his love for humanity by saving mankind from the power of sin by giving His son, Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. Paul is praying that this unfathomable love of God be known to all the believers. He prays that they may be rooted and grounded in love. Root is the not just the anchor but also is the source of nourishment to a plant and foundation is the structure that holds the whole building in place.

Interestingly both are not visible at first sight, but are absolutely essential. Paul wants the believers to be anchored in love. Paul wishes that all will be filled with this divine love to perform all the tasks that are essential for the newly formed Church. As Jews and Gentiles started worshipping together, there were frictions between groups in the church. In the early church, people from all ethnicities and cultures joined together, and there were a lot of differences that annoyed one another and created bitterness. Paul rightly understood that everyone need strength to love and power to comprehend the love that God showed through Christ.

Application

Love is an attribute of God. It is the core of His being. God is love and love never fails, and it will never cease. It is hard to love and it takes hard work to love another person. Early church was filled with people from all ethnicities and thoughts and obviously this came with differences in preference and culture. Add to that a healthy dose of false teachings that were permeating the church. Further, there were factionalism and favoritism.  This sounds like what we have today, there are several external and internal threats for the Church and all that it stands for.

The way forward is to take decisive actions to combat the issues in the light of sound doctrines and do this while being rooted and grounded in love. If we understand the width and length, depth and height of God’s love, we will have the courage to do our actions motivated by love. The presence of God in our hearts is demonstrated by the display of love by those who profess to believe in Christ.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You for showing us what love means. Help us to understand Your love and show that self-sacrificing love to others even when they disagree with us. Help us to be understand Your love and reflect Your love to all.  In Jesus name, amen.