Monday, May 9, 2016

The Empowered Life of a Christian Part 2 - Ephesians 3:14-20 Devotion

What does it look like to be empowered by what Christ did for us?

What can Christ's love do in our lives?


Because of God's great plan, we are apart of a family ordained by God. Being apart of this family brings empowering traits that only come from God. I did the first four verses of Ephesians 3:14-20 and now I am going to give you the last three verses. I love how these verses give us the picture of being apart of God's family and what we get being apart of it. I am going to show you this using the New Living Translation.

"14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father,[e] 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.[f] 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think."
As stated before these verse show a progression of what happens being apart of God's family.

1) When you allow your roots to grow into God's love, you will gain the power to understand it deeply.

I love the picture of roots taking hold of God's love. His love has so many different facets to it. It is unchanging. It never ends. It's like superglue; it never leaves us. It is all encompassing as Paul says "how wide, how long, how high and how deep...". But it only comes when we grow deep roots in it by allowing Christ to take hold of our whole hearts. It like emptying our yourselves completely to Him. Christ dying on the cross gave us the ability to understand God's love for us.

What do you think "to understand how wide, how long, how high and how deep His love is" means to you? What does that look in your life?

2) When we gain the power to understand God's love for us deeply, it is still hard to understand even though it makes us complete in the fullness of life and power.

Even though we come to trust in Christ with our lives and allow His love to guide us and change us, it is something that we cannot fully grasp. As a human, we understand only conditional human love. It is hard for us to understand fully what Christ's love means for us. But that's why we have the relationship we have with Christ because day by day when we live completely for Him, He shows us. How does He show us? By making us complete in the fullness of life and power. Even as I write that, it gives me peace because it means that I am still being worked out and I will experience the fullness of life and power as I continue to trust and surrender to Him. What does fullness of life and power look like? Here are some verses

As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness;
I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.
Psalm 17:15
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    For they shall be filled
Matthew 5:6
He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He also will hear their cry and save them.
Psalm 145:19
Blessed is the man You choose,
And cause to approach You,
That he may dwell in Your courts.
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,
Of Your holy temple
Psalm 65:4
but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.
But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life
John 4:14
The fullness of life and power comes from seeking God and being satisfied in Him.

What verse that I shared encouraged you? Or is there a verse that these verses remind you of what it means to live in the fullness of life and power? Hold onto it and pray it as a prayer to God right now.

3) Because we can live in the fullness of life and power only through God, we can be able to see God work in us to do more than we might ask or even think is possible.

Isn't that awesome?! When we completely trust in Christ and allow His love to change us and we can experience the fullness of life and power, God will use us to do things that we can never ever thought we ever could do. That's huge. That is the empowered life. We no longer worry about the things of this world but we become entirely motivated by God and His love for us and do great things and that make an impact in this world. I don't know about you but that is where I want to be. That is what I want to do with my life.

How about you? What are things that might be stopping you from truly experiencing the fullness of life and power to allow God to do anything through you?

linking up with #tellhisstory and Coffee for your Heart

4 comments :

  1. "...Empowered life." Amen, Kristina. I like the emphasis on being motivated by God's love, which empowers us to impact the world around us. Thanks for sharing these truths today. ((grace upon grace))

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    1. Thank you for the encouraging words and stopping by. : )

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  2. God is so amazingly good! Your words speak of surrender - the letting go of ourselves to make room for God in our lives. I pray that there is less of me and more of Him but I need to remember to get out of the way of myself. Thank you for your words today.

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  3. Yes, He is so good! I am do thankful that He never lets go and that His love is life changing. This is continuous my hope. Thank you for stopping by

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