20.05 | To Know This Love
Ephesians 2:11-3:21
'For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.’
Ephesians 3:14-19
A number of years ago, I was invited to join a three day training programme with a psychotherapist. She was training a group of psychologists in a particular model of therapy. As a Christian, she was also interested in the intersection of this model of therapy with Christian discipleship. She invited a few church leaders (including me) to come and do the programme.
Those three days enormously impacted me. Not just personally, in what I confronted in myself, but also in growing understanding of how the wounding and healing of the heart works. I think I’d previously understood the wounding of the heart to be the presence of some traumatic event (or events). While this is often true, pain can be viewed through a different lens — one that is helpful to recognise if healing is to occur. Rather than simply seeing those places of hurt as the presence of evil, it can more greatly be seen as the denial of something good. That in those moments of greatest trauma or exclusion or critique or failure, you had legitimate and heartfelt needs that went unmet. That your desires for security and community and dignity and encouragement and to be heard were healthy and good desires. It introduced an idea that has stayed with me.
That the wounding of our hearts comes through one single great thing:
The absence of love.
And the flip side of this — that the healing of our hearts comes through one single great thing:
Being loved.
Every wound that we carry can be seen through this lens. That those places where you received such deep pain, was not merely the presence of something wrong, but it was the denial to your soul of that measure of goodness for which it was made. Love is the environment in which the soul thrives and the atmosphere in which it heals. Every pain on this planet will not heal primarily through discipline or correction or trying harder; we heal through being loved.
Paul wants us to understand this today. He yearns for it. And he prays for it.
He wants the Gentile believers to understand that every single passage and promise of the Old Testament story — of the Jewish people, chosen and called and included and treasured — are now for them. Every promise. Every calling. Every metaphor. Every statement of identity. That their inclusion is not grudging or second rate, but that the magnificent grace of God has made space for their abundant and total and joyful inclusion.
He wants them to understand that the knowledge of the love of the Father is the organising ideal of how he prays. For this reason. He prays with confidence because he is loved. He prays within the atmosphere of the Father’s love. He prays knowing that his every word and thought and desire is so deeply welcomed by the heart of the Father, that prayer is a place of utter security, where his desires and voice are greatly welcome.
And he prays for the Ephesians, in some of the most beautiful words in the New Testament. He prays towards them being filled with all the fullness of God. And yet, this fullness comes, not from prayer unto perfect morality or magnificent ability or extraordinary power. Rather, it is a prayer that they would know love. It is a prayer for such deep immersion in the knowledge of the love of the Father, that all parts of our souls can heal unto the beauty and freedom and joy and fullness for which we were made.
There may be no more significant prayer for your own hurting soul. There may be no greater prayer to pray over your friends and family. There may be no clearer ambition to pray over every single hurting, pained, angry, violent, downtrodden and abandoned life that you know, than these great words of love.
Because, my friends, when the absence of love is the problem that caused the wound, there is only one solution:
To know this love.
May this be our journey, that we, in turn, may be filled to the fullness of God.
Reflect:
Reflect on a place of pain today.
It may be in your life.
Or it may be in a situation you know.
Ask the Spirit to show you how the absence of love caused this pain.
Turn this to prayer.
Pray:
Father,
I bow my knees before you,
The Father who defines all true fathering.
I pray that,
According to the riches of your glory,
You may strengthen me with power
Through your Spirit
In my innermost self,
So that Christ
May abide in this heart
Through faith;
And I pray that I,
With deep roots and strong foundations in love,
May have power to understand,
Alongside all of God's people,
The extraordinary dimensions of the Father’s love,
And to know that I know that I know the love of Christ
That exceeds all knowledge,
That I may be filled
With all the fullness of God.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
2 Samuel 22 | Psalm 67