IS THERE SOMETHING IN THE BIBLE THAT PUZZLES YOU?

If so please EMail us with your question and we will do our best to give you a satisfactory answer.EMailus.

FREE Scholarly verse by verse commentaries on the Bible.

THE PENTATEUCH

GENESIS ---EXODUS--- LEVITICUS 1.1-7.38 --- 8.1-11.47 --- 12.1-16.34--- 17.1-27.34--- NUMBERS 1-10--- 11-19--- 20-36--- DEUTERONOMY 1.1-4.44 --- 4.45-11.32 --- 12.1-29.1--- 29.2-34.12 --- THE BOOK OF JOSHUA --- THE BOOK OF JUDGES --- PSALMS 1-17--- ECCLESIASTES --- ISAIAH 1-5 --- 6-12 --- 13-23 --- 24-27 --- 28-35 --- 36-39 --- 40-48 --- 49-55--- 56-66--- EZEKIEL --- DANIEL 1-7 ---DANIEL 8-12 ---

NAHUM--- HABAKKUK---ZEPHANIAH ---ZECHARIAH --- THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW ---THE GOSPEL OF MARK--- THE GOSPEL OF LUKE --- THE GOSPEL OF JOHN --- THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES --- 1 CORINTHIANS 1-7 --- 8-16 --- 2 CORINTHIANS 1-7 --- 8-13 -- -GALATIANS --- EPHESIANS --- COLOSSIANS --- 1 THESSALONIANS --- 2 THESSALONIANS --- 1 TIMOTHY --- 2 TIMOTHY --- TITUS --- HEBREWS 1-6 --- 7-10 --- 11-13 --- JAMES --- JOHN'S LETTERS --- REVELATION

--- THE GOSPELS

Chapter 20 The Love That Passes All Knowledge (Ephesians 3.16-19).

In Ephesians 3.16-17 Paul’s prayer for God’s people was that ‘out of the riches of His glory’, they should be ‘strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man’, and the purpose of it was that ‘Christ might dwell in our hearts by faith’ (Ephesians 3.16-17).

Note first the prime Source. It was ‘out of the riches of His glory’. There is no stinting there. It tells us that God will act out of the fullness of His glory in order to bring about what is described. That is, that all the glory and power of the Almighty Father is to be at work in it. Now think about that! If you go to the warehouses of the greatest stores in the world, and then add together all that is in them, what they contain is as nothing compared with this. If you consider the mighty power of the exploding H Bomb, or even more the explosion of a super nova, they are as a drop in the ocean compared with the riches of His glory. All the wealth of all the banks in the world pale into insignificance when compared with them. ‘The riches of His glory’ are all-embracing, all-providing, unfathomable and unending, and yet from these He resources us.

Note also the Means. It is by the mighty power of His all-powerful Spirit working within the ‘inward man’ of each believer. Can you imagine any greater power than that? An irresistible power that nothing can restrain, coming like a mighty rushing river which the wind of the Lord drives (Isaiah 59.19). And it is linked with the power of the Almighty Father. And together They are at work in each believer, ‘working within us to will and to do of His good pleasure’ (Philippians 2.13). Should we not then expect dynamic results?

And then we come to the Result, and what a glorious result it is. It is to have Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith. Now in Scripture the ‘heart’ is the source of all man’s activity, of all His ‘willing’ and all his ‘doing’. And the idea is therefore not that Christ should be tucked away in our hearts where we can simply think about Him when we want to, but that all our willing and all our doing should be done by the indwelling Christ. That He should be living out as He will through us.

For it tells us that Christians, having received into their lives the Risen Christ, are to allow Him to live out His life through him or her, as the Father acts out of the riches of His glory, and the Spirit moves in His mighty power. That surely means that we can no longer live to ourselves, that we can no longer seek to control our own lives, but that we must live to Him Who died for us and rose again (2 Corinthians 5.15).

You will notice that the idea here is of a clear take-over. No quarter is given. There are no half measures. The old ‘car driver’ is to be moved out, indeed is to die. And a new Driver is to take over having possession of all the controls, and having complete control over our lives. It is no longer we who are to be the Driver, we are to become new co-drivers with Christ, and our bodies are to become the car. And we must respond to His every movement. As Paul put it we must ‘put off the old man who directed our former manner of life’, and, being renewed in the spirit of our minds, must ‘put on the new man’ who according to God’s plan ‘has been created in righteousness and true holiness’ (Ephesians 4.22-24). This new man is ourselves as indwelt by Christ. For ‘if any man is in Christ he is a new creature, old things have passed away, all has become new’ (2 Corinthians 5.17). Thus we must crucify the flesh with its affections and desires Galatians 5.24), and being led by the Spirit, walk step by step with the Spirit (Galatians 5.25) so that the life of the indwelling Christ might be lived out through us.

What an exciting prospect this is, but how all-demanding. There is no room here for our will to be in conflict with His will. We have to submit to a full take-over. From now on it is to be His will, and His will alone that directs our lives. Yet this is not to lose our wills, it is simply to do what we ought to do, to align our will with His.

But because we are so sinful we do not want this. We try to cling on to this old life. We want Christ to save us, but not to change us too much. But this is not acceptable to God. The whole purpose of our salvation is that we might be ‘crucified with Christ’ (Galatians 2.20). It is that we might be dead to sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6.11). It is that we might become holy, and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight (Colossians 1.22; 1 Thessalonians 3.13).

So each of us is called on of our own free wills to climb on to the cross and die there. Like the driving instructor who has come to recognise that there is no alternative Christ is saying to us, ‘move over’. And the result will be that then we will truly live. But it will no longer be we who live. It will be Christ Who lives in us. And the life that we now live in our bodies will be by faith in the Son of God Who loved us and gave Himself for us (Galatians 2.20). We will be taken up with that love and our self-surrender will therefore be complete.

We will recognise that we are rooted and grounded in His love. All the fertilisers in the world cannot produce a soil like this. And in the environment of that love as it feeds and sustains us we will be made strong with all His people to lay hold of its length and breadth and depth and height, with the result that we will go on to know in experience the love of Christ which passes all knowledge and to be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3.17-19).

You see so much of our problem as we live our lives is that we do not appreciate that love. Somehow in our petty, earthly lives we get caught up in all kinds of things, and are too busy to appreciate His love. But let it once dawn upon us and nothing will matter more to us than to please Him and live for Him with all our hearts. We will present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is the reasonable way in which we should serve, not being conformed to this world, but being transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we may prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God (Roman 12.1-2).

The true test of love in any marriage is that each wants what the other longs for. Our desire is to please the one we love. And thus the true test of our love for Christ is that we want what He longs for. And as we have seen what he longs for has been made clear. His longing is that He night live through us, that He might make Himself known to the world through us, that we might be the channels of what he is to the world..

So the question that each of us must answer is a simple one. Will I let Christ begin to live out His life though me today? Will I recognise that in accepting His death for me, that death that reveals the greatness of His love, I have accepted the necessity for me to die with Him, and must therefore reckon myself to be dead to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ your Lord (Romans 6.11)?