29 July 2012

Last Sunday's Thought: Is Love truly our foundation?


The writings of the Apostle Paul are replete with prayer. If we follow the suggestions of one topical arrangement, they cover variously prayers for Godly living, for ministry opportunity and success, for strengthening, for increased knowledge – of the Lord, of His will, of his love, of the hope of his calling, of the riches we have, of his power; for more love; for grace and peace, for Christians to be in one accord, for Israel’s salvation, for Christ to dwell in our hearts through faith; for more hope, and for the fullness of God.
         Uniquely, our reading from Ephesians chapter 3:14-21 combines four prayers in one. Paul prays for our strengthening; for increased knowledge of the love of Jesus; for Christ to dwell in our hearts by faith; and for the fullness of God: ‘And I pray that you…may have power… to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.’ Paul’s writing can be rather crowded and difficult to follow, because so many thoughts jostle together. One suggested paraphrase reads at verses 17-19 that Christ may abide as a permanent resident in your hearts through faith; that you, being stable on the foundation of love, may be entirely competent to take eagerly and seize and understand with all the saints the width, and length, and height, and depth; and to know the love of Christ which goes beyond human knowledge, that you will be filled to the measure with all the fullness of God.
Yet this is hardly a beautiful paraphrase of a wonderful prayer. Much to be preferred is Tom Wrights version as prayer: My prayer is this, that he will lay out all the riches of his glory to give you strength and power, through his spirit in your inner being; that the king may make his home in your hearts, through faith; that love may be your root, your firm foundation; and that you may be strong enough (with all Gods holy ones) to grasp the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the kings love  though actually its so deep that nobody can really know it! So may God fill you with all his fullness.’ [Tom Wright, The New Testament for Everyone, 430.]


In On Your Knees! St Paul at Prayer (1992), Michael Green imagines this prayer as a meditation of St Paul while he lay in prison dictating his letter to the Ephesians. His chains permit him to kneel as he prays. The prayer is permeated by a sense of wonder at being a member of God’s family. Our family relations, spoiled and marred by sin and discord as they are, are pale reflections of the perfect Parent in heaven who is the ultimate source of all love and all families. Rather than prayer being something we do for God, by allowing him to come and minister to us, we receive a gracious, indwelling, Saviour, who seeks to make us his home. We cannot have Christ in our hearts without having love on board. ‘Nobody’, Michael Green concludes, ‘has ever framed a bolder prayer than the one Paul... pray[s]’ in Ephesians 3: ‘that his readers be filled with all the fullness of God. Yet God is able to do abundantly above what we ask or think.
It is indeed a wonderful prayer, and it gets to the heart of the Christian message. In order to change other people’s lives, our own lives must first be changed. If we really do begin to appreciate the enormity of God’s love for us, and particularly the width, and length, and height, and depth of the love Christ has for us, we may be filled to the measure with all the fullness of God.
For we need to be completely filled with the love of God. If we are not quite empty vessels, we are like containers which are only partially full. We need to let God fill us to overflowing. No matter how much love God pours into us, he is never empty: he always has more. God never runs out of love. Left to our own devices, we do not have inexhaustible supplies of love. As Paul states elsewhere, at 2 Corinthians 4:7: ‘…we have this treasure in clay jars, so that the extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.’ God fills these old clay jars – that is, us – with Himself so that it becomes evident that it is not us, but the extraordinary power of God that changes lives. No human being can take credit for the Gospel message or for the spread of the Word of God. We are mere instruments. It is God who does the work with His message of the good news in Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God.