Filled to the Fullest

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

FILLED TO THE FULLEST

Eph 3:14-19

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

NIV

What a second, did not Paul just say that we are rooted and established in love and that he prayed that together with all the saints we can grasp the width, length, height, and depth is the love of Christ, and now it seems he prays that we know this love that surpasses knowledge. How can we know this love, if it surpassed knowledge? Yet that is exactly what we can know, because the Spirit who dwells within us, leads us into all truth. We know and comprehend just how much Jesus loves us because we have the very word of God that gives us the details of the greatest expression of love that has ever been expressed. With all the power in heaven and on earth being God, Jesus willingly allowed his arrest, his so-called trial, and being seen by the very people he can to, declared him worthy of death, and handed him over to their oppressors to be beaten till his skin was nearly torn off his body, then nailed to that cross for public humiliation until suffocation came to the lungs, and death was imminent. Jesus did all that for us, and they did not take his life, he gave it because of his love. When we think about the suffering Jesus endured for us, we want to weep in our spirit, in our soul, but at the same time, we want to rejoice and be glad for through the body and blood of Jesus God has redeemed us and marked us with His seal showing us that we belong to Him and are due our inheritance in His kingdom. If only we could love as Jesus did, but then He is God and we are but a reflection of His glory, and as long as we are held captive in this flesh we can only love in the human sense, even though we see the fullness of love in Christ. This also brings us to being filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Oh, to be filled with all the fullness of God may be more than we can completely comprehend. To be filled up with God is a powerful experience. There is nothing in this world that we could see or do that would even come anywhere close to the experience of being filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. It makes us think that if we are being filled to the measure of all the fullness of God, that we are completely full of all of God there is no room within us for our own fullness, which means we have nothing to boast about other than Christ. If we are truly filled with all the fullness of God then our lives are not about our accomplishments, our works, or our position in the body of Christ, but everything is about the love of God expressed toward us through Christ Jesus. God desires to dwell within us to the fullness of Himself and so we empty ourselves and are filled with God.