Paul, like fine wine.

SCRIPTURE:  And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, 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. Ephesians 3:17-19 NIV

THOUGHT: Reading Paul’s letters is sometimes a little like reading the label on a fine bottle of wine. “Ripe black-plum and spicy aromas, with coffee and nutmeg. Rich, full-bodied, and generous, with plentiful smooth and chunky tannins. Spicy, licorice on the finish.”

What???? I have so many questions, I don’t know where to start (like how can any liquid be chunky? and are the chunks licorice?).

There are layers to Paul’s thoughts and phrases that must be unpacked. Sometimes I even get a little impatient and, like with the wine bottles and their heady descriptions, I just glaze over and keep moving. But taking time to unpack it all a little, Paul’s kind of fruit-filled notes start to make sense. Especially full of that fruit he named patience (Galatians 5:22).

So, be patient with me a minute while I try to describe the layers and bring us to a smooth (but chunky) finish 😊.

Did you know it takes power to grasp the love of Christ? And just to push that envelope a little further, it takes being established in love before you get the power you need to grasp the love that surpasses knowledge. And once you have the power to grasp what surpasses knowledge, there’s another filling that happens: full to the top with God’s fullness.

It’s like a building with multiple stories.

The foundation has to be love; you and I must be rooted and established in love before anything else happens. That means we must wrestle with the whole story of God until the day we cross the line from unbelief to belief. We must lay down our attempts to find life and love without God and admit we need his kind of love.

Once we experience being forgiven and loved in spite of our worst moments of our worst day, we begin another journey: a growing awareness of how little we actually know. God is so much bigger than we conceived, even in our moment of truth. That’s the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, teaching us things we’ve never known, opening up our spirits to his Spirit, teaching us to love him, others and ourselves like God does. Our prayers start to sound more powerful.

In Acts 1:8, we find the final words of a resurrected Jesus to his disciples, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” That power keeps growing as we make room for Spirit. The foundation of love starts to show signs of a building. We are being built up by faith. Jude encourages Christians in his letter, “But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life (Jude 1:20-21).” We are growing in power and in patience.

We begin to grasp just how big and amazing and wide and long and deep and high this love really is – yet just when we think we have it, it slips through our hands. We fail or fall and realize again that we aren’t worthy of such extravagant love. No, we aren’t, but the amazing truth of God’s love is that it isn’t about our being worthy, it’s about him being God. So our building grows an entire story of humility that wasn’t there before. We’re not as tempted to try things in our own strength. We learn to bow a knee in prayer rather than brandish our worldly weapons. Our prayers become filled with longing, “God, empty me of self, and fill me to the measure of all the fullness of you.”

Suddenly, we count ourselves among those who’ve received grace upon grace (John 1:16); those for whom the spiritual life has become life, and earthly life has lost its sizzle, the latter seeming a little more like heady marketing copy than actual, real, full-bodied life.

And here’s the smooth but chunky finish: don’t expect the world to understand you. They might like talk of love, but they won’t understand your passion for the fullness of God. Paul tells his friends the Corinthians, “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:14 NIV).”

If you made it all the way through this post, I congratulate you – and pray you press on further! Together, let’s parse the layers of faith to a smooth-even-if-chunky finish.

PRAYER: Oh God, help us press in and press on to that great love which is beyond understanding. Fill us to the measure with the only fullness that will ever satisfy.