God our Father has already bestowed upon us the fullness of his love. (John 16:27, 17:23) If you are his, you will never be more loved by him then you are loved by him right now as you read this. All the work you do in the church. all the pursuit of him will not increase his favor of you. You are fully loved. His love is complete and perfect in itself. It is not high one day and low the other. It is steady. It will never increase and it will never decrease by anything you do or don’t do. It is fixed. His love is a gift that he choose to give you of his own will. It is free. You can never earn his love.
You are a recipient of it, not because you did anything to draw his eyes toward you. Not because you are deserving. Not because you are better then others. Not because you are so lovable or have so much potential. Not for any reason other then grace. He chose to love you simply because he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he will have compassion on whom he will have compassion.” Exo. 33:19 In essence, He will love whomever He wills to love, for no other reason then He wills it or he wills it not. He has willed to love you.
Will you will to love him?
Our Lord commands us, over and over again. Love me. This is the first and greatest commandment.
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. – Deut 6.5
All the Lord’s promises are directed to those who love him.
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. Deut. 7:9, Daniel 9:4; Nehemiah 1:5
“Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.- Psalm. 91:14
The LORD watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. – Psalm 145:20
However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” — the things God has prepared for those who love him— 1 Corinthians 2:9
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. – Romans 8:28
Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.- James 1:12
Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? – James 2:5
Loving Him, is what sets the genuine followers of Christ apart from those who merely profess his name.
The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught. – Isaiah 29:13
The fact is, the Lord is after our hearts. He is asking you for your heart and not just part of it, but all of it.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ – Mark 12:30
But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. – Deuteronomy 4:29
“The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. – Deuteronomy 13:3
He wants you in your entirety. He doesn’t want just your infatuation. He doesn’t want your half-hearted interest. He doesn’t want your 10 minutes a day or whatever he can get. He wants all of you to be given over to him. Your entire life, every area to be his, and his alone.
Will you will to love him?
We love him because he first loved us. – 1 John 4:19
It is the Lord’s own great and perfect love for us that prompts our own love for him as we come to grasp just how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – and the result -we are filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph.3:17-19) What a prospect! – to be filled to the measure – this is not a partial filling – what are we to be filled with? – the fullness of God. How much of it? All the fullness of God.
Adam Clarke states in his 1810/1825 Commentary, “Among all the great sayings in this prayer, this is the greatest. To be FILLED with God is a great thing; to be filled with the FULNESS of God is still greater; but to be filled with ALL the fulness of God, utterly bewilders the sense and confounds the understanding.”
Amen. It does confound the understanding and bewilders the senses doesn’t it? I don’t know which confounds me more the unbounded depth of Christ’s love for me that surpasses knowledge and measure or the idea that I am to be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. This is God’s will. These are not mere ideas, or hopes, this is to be my reality! To know, to hope in and enjoy such love as this! To be filled to the measure of all fullness with God, who is himself – Love.
It is for us to partake of his divine nature as he dwells in us. (2. Ptr 1:4) Our hearts cannot contain his love once he reveals it to us. It is his own love that we love him with for it is his own love that He fills us with. We say we cannot love, we do not love…this is an impossibility for those who know Him, we need only to ask Him to make his truth a reality in our lifes. For whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8) To grow in the knowledge of God, is nothing less then to grow in the understanding of his love and to be filled to the measure of all fullness with God Himself who enables us to love.
