Rooted in Love

Well, I guess the month of July isn't going to have many posts in the archives, since it's been over 20 days since I last posted. Strange, every time I studied this month, I didn't feel like I was able to share anything or pass it along. So, I stayed quiet. Hope you didn't think I had forgotten about you! (wink)

Well, today I did a little studying on my own, and then listened to a little teaching. The teaching was about the love of God. I started thinking about that. It has always been very easy for me to say the blanket statement that God loves the world. God loves you. God loves everyone. But, to say 'God loves ME' - well, it hasn't always really been so easy for me to believe.

Thankfully, I am at a place now where I know God loves me - even when I slack, He loves me. Even when I slip up, He loves me. Even when I mess up, make mistakes, do wrong things, make poor choices, He loves me. I KNOW it because He has shown me. He has shown me in His word. He has shown me in the little things He does for me in my daily life. He has shown me in certain experiences in prayer. He has shown me through the love of others.

Still, I know that my knowledge of His love could still grow deeper. The Bible talks about being like a tree that is deeply rooted, so as not to be tossed around when storms come. It says to be rooted and firmly founded in love.

There's one set of scripture that I want to share with you today from Ephesians 3, but I have reworded it to make it a personal prayer, rather than a scripture written to a group of people that lived thousands of years ago. It comes from Ephesians 3:16-19.

• Lord, by Your glory, strengthen me with the mighty power of the Holy Spirit Himself dwelling in me and filling every part of me. Jesus, may you, through my faith, settle down and make your permanent home in my heart. May I be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love. Lord give me the strength and the power to understand and grasp the breadth and length and height and depth of Your love for me, that I may come to know Your love through my own experiences, a knowledge that far surpasses mere knowledge without experience. Lord, that I would be filled through my entire being unto all the fullness of You, that I may have the richest measure of Your divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself! - Amen.

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 saints, 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. (NIV)