The Power of the Love of God!

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, 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.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” - Ephesians 3:14-21 NIV

There are five main points that all of us need to learn or remind ourselves in Ephesians 3:14-21.

First, we have to realise that the working of the Spirit of God (John 14:15-27) is not same as the moments of inspiration. Many of us tend to think they are same because it is quite similar. The moments of inspiration are just empowerment of the Spirit of God or visions of God, which happens rarely. If these moments happen, we feel like that we are able to devote our lives to God and feel like anything is literally possible. However, we should devote our lives to God with such great faith in Jesus Christ, even though moments of inspiration do not come. They are also like the call of God because we surely would know that God wants us to strive particular thing that happens to be the will of God. The first encounter of the Spirit that I had is when I was starting to become a true follower of Jesus Christ and real Christian. I believe this happened because I was very religious for about one year, due to the fact that volunteering just creates joy in my heart and I was volunteering for my first church in New Zealand. At that time, I was only thinking about my friends, which I knew from Long Bay College. Since one of my friend was lifting his hands up during worship time, I followed him, thinking that it was kind of the law during worship time. Because I thought that Christianity is all about the law, I purposely prayed for a couple of hours. Thus, I thank God for speaking into me like I have had to get to know Jesus more through my first moment of inspiration from God. I know this was my first moment of inspiration because I knew nothing about God and my heart was kind of hardened due to the fact that I was only focusing on the world too much. Therefore, I was basically an enemy of God as James 4:4-5 declares, “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?” This does not mean we have to wait for moment of inspiration to happen, to become a true Christian; we just have to open our hearts before the Lord to be followers of Jesus Christ (Revelations 3:20). Second, when we become Christians, the Spirit of God works along the way, especially to those of us who love the Lord wholeheartedly (Romans 8:28). Around two years after I have been Christian, the Spirit of God has empowered me to write devotionals, which one of kind of Christian-writings. Because of this, I have found my dream—to be a Christian Writer.

Furthermore, all of us need to grasp how wide, long, high, and deep is the love of God is at all times, even if we are Christians and followers of Jesus Christ. This is because we tend to forget it or think that the love of God is just normal for God. God is love but He literally sent His beloved Son, Jesus Christ as an image of Himself, into the world to crucify Himself on the cross as an atonement of our sins. Because of this, God has been able to change our eternal destinies from death to life through Jesus Christ (1 John 4:9-10; John 3:16-18). “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23). The main reason for this is that we actually have been created by God (Genesis 1:27). God has desperately wanted us to share His Kingdom with us so He has already presented us holy and blameless in His sight through Jesus Christ, even before when we are born (Ephesians 1:4-6), so we just have to believe in Jesus until the end of the age. In addition to this, God has given His Word to us and future generations to guide us how to live the way that God wants us to (Colossians 1:21-23) as the Philippians 1:27-29 states, “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.”

Because Philippians 1:27 states that all of us have to strive as one for the faith of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the word of God is best method to encourage one another between Christians (Hebrews 10:19-25). This is because true Christians already know that Gospel of Jesus Christ is the true living and active Word (Hebrews 4:12). “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:17) One of the reasons for this are probably that all of us take part of the temple of the Spirit of God to be the holy temple in the Lord (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; Ephesians 2:19-22). Therefore, we need to love one another—up to the point that all of us can be united with one mind and thought—so that with one mind and with one voice, we can glorify the Lord (Romans 15:5-6; 1 Corinthians 1:10-17).  In fact, the second greatest commandment of God is to love each other (Mark 12:31), for love comes from God (1 John 4:7-8). 1 John 4:20-21 declares, ‘if someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.’ One of the main reasons why I am able to continue to write devotionals is the love of God. not only that Christian-writing is the will of God for me, I love God so much, that I love His Word. Because of this, I want to make people to fully understand what the word of God means and how important the word of God is to our lives, even though the Spirit of God is going to do it in His timing. Furthermore, one of my closest member of my New Zealand church really believes that I can be best or successful Christian Writer in the future, and she even prayed about it when we were having prayer meeting together I think. Thus, for this reason, she is trying her best as she could to help me.