Ephesians 3:17-21

Ephesians 3:17-21

“That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Together with the saints we can comprehend God’s content and the love of Christ. However, to preserve fellowship with the saints, we need to be rooted and grounded in love. It doesn’t take much before a person wavers and drifts away unless he is grounded. Most people love when others are good to them, but their love would soon grow cold if anyone ever did something to them they didn’t like. Someone who gets offended is not grounded in love, and he senses that he is on the outside. He is no longer together with the saints, and therefore he cannot comprehend the content that is in God. Neither can he receive any of God’s fullness. 1 John 4:12.

We find our ministry when we are together with the saints. A member that is alone does not have a ministry; he only receives his ministry together with the others in the same body, and when we serve we can be filled with all God’s fullness. There we get to know our poverty that only God can fill. And He will fill our need exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. Most people think that God does much less than what they understand to pray for, but that is because they only think of themselves. Love does not seek its own. It sacrifices and gives. We will never be unemployed when we abide in love. Then we have much to do and pray for as love shows the need. Then we will experience that God does everything—far beyond what we understand to pray for—and He does it through those who are rooted and grounded in love. Thus we are filled with all the fullness of God.

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Love is measured according to how much it sacrifices. We have to sacrifice without ceasing in order to abide in love. Someone who feels insulted, is offended, backbites, wants to rule, gets angry, etc., does not want to do that. The love of Christ surpasses all knowledge. We have very little intimation of what He has sacrificed in order to save us, but as we enter into the ministry, we learn more about it. We see in Colossians 3:12-14 what we need in order to be able to bear each other. Those who are rooted and grounded in love bring all the sacrifices as they are reminded of them; they bear and endure all things. We learn to know the love of Christ—the breadth and length and depth and height of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God—as we bring these sacrifices. We receive more and more insight into His unsearchable riches and His ways that are past finding out. Rom. 11:33.

We cannot come to this as a recluse, spiritually speaking, but only together with the saints. We can also find in the natural that such recluses turn out to be somewhat strange. They don’t receive an education. There is such disorder in their house that you don’t even want to go in and eat there. This also applies to the spiritual. Therefore you cannot have just “Jesus alone,” but you need to have Him as your head together with the entire body. Then if you abide in love, you will be fully equipped for the work of ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ. Eph. 4:12, 32.

Here we find the reason for one person’s progress and another person’s stagnation or regression.