Embrace
We grow in Christ no further than we enjoy his embrace of us.
God’s love is greater than we now conceive. We need to see it. We have this love even whtn we don’t feel deserving of it.In Eph. 3:16-19, Paul prays that God would give to the Ephesians the power to know how much Jesus loves them…..to know the love of Christ. He was writing this to believers, those who had been converted and knew that Christ loves them. Paul is praying that these believers would taste the love of Christ, experience this. John Bunyan spoke of Christ’s love:
Love in him is essential to his being. God is love; Christ is God; therfore Christ is love, love naturally. He may as well cease to be as cease to love.
Paul wants believers to know and comprehend the love of Christ (Eph. 3:18-19). We get this by receiving, not moral exertion. Ortlund tells us that our growth in Christ is dependent on how settled we are in our hearts that God indeed loves us. In the midst of our shame and regret, he loves us.
How do we actually experience God’s love? We look at Jesus and God pours the Holy Spirit into our felt experience. (Titus 3:5-6, Romans 5:5). This means inner enjoyment of the heart. It is this experience that uproots sin. Where do we look for this? The Bible and good books about it show us our need for a savior and God’s provision for one. Jonathan Edwards, in speaking of those who are surprised by God’s love, says,
They unexpectedly find him with open arms to embrace them, ready forever to forget all their sins as though they had never been.
For some, suffering can be a blockage to knowing his love. However it is his suffering that defines us, not our experiences we have endured. Even if you have ignored God’s love, squandered it, misunderstood it, or hardened yours to him, his arms are opened to you, the exact position in which he hung on the cross.
Acquittal
We grow in Christ by getting deeper into the verdict of acquittal that got us into Christ in the first place. Justification is outside-in, where sanctifiation is inside out. We will never grow in Christ until we realize that the gospel is not a hotel to pass through, but a home to live in. True growth is internal, but will manifest itself on the outside. Puritan Edward Fisher said that conformity to rules without an internal reality fueling it, is like watering a tree except for its roots and expecting it to grow.
We grow by digging deeper into our justification that saved us in the first place. The author says” Idolatry is the folly of asking a gift to be a giver”. We expect our idols to give us what only God can give. An idol will never satisfy our longing. We will chase it, maybe get within reach, and then we don’t know why it was not enough.
Quotes
“It’s precisely our messiness that makes Christ’s love so surprising, startling,
so arresting-and therby so transforming.” p79
“Your sufferring does not define you, His does.”p 81
“We grow in Christ as we go deeper into, rather than moving on from, the verdict of acquittal that got us into Christ” p 85
“Live your life out of a justified existence.” p 103
Read chapters 6 and 7 for next week