Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer from Ephesians 3 is a beautiful reflection of what God desires to do in every believer. To bow before the Father and ask to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner person, to have Christ dwell in the heart through faith, to be rooted and grounded in love and to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge, and to be filled with all the fullness of God, is to ask for the very life God intends for His children.
God answers that prayer by His Spirit dwelling in you. The evidence that His Spirit is at work is not found in outward displays that can be counterfeited, but in love. God is love, and when His Spirit lives in you, His love is formed in you. That love shows itself in a genuine love for Jesus Christ and for His people, a love for the family of God and the things of God. If we love one another, it is because God dwells in us and His love is being made perfect in us. This is how we know we dwell in Him and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit, and the fruit of that Spirit is love.
That kind of love is not something you can manufacture or work up by effort. Before coming to Jesus Christ the spirit is dead and knows nothing of this agape love. Only God can make the spirit alive, and only by His Spirit can you experience and share this love. It is the Spirit who reveals Jesus Christ, who confesses that Jesus the Messiah has come in the flesh, and who sheds abroad the love of God in the heart. As you walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh, that love constrains and motivates all that you do for Him, because you are responding to the love with which He first loved you.
Scripture says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and death. God has written His law on the heart and directs even your desires as you are led by His Spirit. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God, and you are not your own. For that reason we are called not to grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we are sealed, but to put away bitterness, wrath, anger and unkind words, and to build others up in love. By the Spirit you are given power to put to death the deeds of the flesh and to live a victorious life that you could never live in your own strength.
My prayer for you is that the Holy Spirit will continue His work in your heart, strengthening you in the inner person, making your faith in Christ deeper, grounding you more firmly in love, and opening your understanding to grasp with all the saints the width and length and depth and height of the love of Christ. May you know more of that love which goes beyond knowledge, and may you be filled to overflowing with the fullness of God. He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. To Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
God answers that prayer by His Spirit dwelling in you. The evidence that His Spirit is at work is not found in outward displays that can be counterfeited, but in love. God is love, and when His Spirit lives in you, His love is formed in you. That love shows itself in a genuine love for Jesus Christ and for His people, a love for the family of God and the things of God. If we love one another, it is because God dwells in us and His love is being made perfect in us. This is how we know we dwell in Him and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit, and the fruit of that Spirit is love.
That kind of love is not something you can manufacture or work up by effort. Before coming to Jesus Christ the spirit is dead and knows nothing of this agape love. Only God can make the spirit alive, and only by His Spirit can you experience and share this love. It is the Spirit who reveals Jesus Christ, who confesses that Jesus the Messiah has come in the flesh, and who sheds abroad the love of God in the heart. As you walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh, that love constrains and motivates all that you do for Him, because you are responding to the love with which He first loved you.
Scripture says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and death. God has written His law on the heart and directs even your desires as you are led by His Spirit. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God, and you are not your own. For that reason we are called not to grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we are sealed, but to put away bitterness, wrath, anger and unkind words, and to build others up in love. By the Spirit you are given power to put to death the deeds of the flesh and to live a victorious life that you could never live in your own strength.
My prayer for you is that the Holy Spirit will continue His work in your heart, strengthening you in the inner person, making your faith in Christ deeper, grounding you more firmly in love, and opening your understanding to grasp with all the saints the width and length and depth and height of the love of Christ. May you know more of that love which goes beyond knowledge, and may you be filled to overflowing with the fullness of God. He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. To Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
