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Charles Kelly

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A Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday devotional meditation by Pastor Charlie Kelly.

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That Mighty Grasp

The Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 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, 19 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) Notice that the Apostle’s prayer is for us to have power to grasp the immensity of Christ’s love for us. Perhaps our grasp has far more to do with keeping a firm grip on the truth that it is Jesus who has a hold on us. Here’s a few poetic lines well worth memorizing: “Let me no more my comfort draw from my frail hold of thee in this alone rejoice with awe — thy mighty grasp of me!” John Campbell Shairp (1871)

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Power To Stay Reassured

The Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 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, 19 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) Yesterday we considered the concept of “being rooted and established in love” as essential to being filled with the fulness of God. But in addition to that, the Apostle prays that the Ephesians “may have power…to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.” This too is clearly vital for being filled with God’s fulness. I think it could be said that the more we experience of the love of Christ for us, the more we will experience the fulness of God in our lives. But experiencing Christ’s love requires power, the power to grasp it. Why is that? I don’t think it’s because it is in some way evasive. The opposite is true. It’s because we are so evasive. That is to say, so easily distracted to where we lose sight of the one reality that — to experience it — is perfect peace and joy. We need power to keep redirecting our thoughts back to how precious we are to Jesus so that he can easily keep on reassuring us that it is so.

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Two Essentials

In my last podcast I proposed that what we read in Ephesians 3:19 could serve as an answer to the question, what is the supreme purpose of humanity. The answer? To “be filled with all the fullness of God.” Notice that leading up to that the Apostle Paul writes that he’s praying that the Ephesian believers be rooted and established in love. Ephesians 3:17 (NIV) For the sake of clarity, let’s use what I think is an excellent synonym for the greek word here translated “love.” The word is “helpfulness.” In that case the Apostle is praying for them to be rooted and established in helpfulness. What does that look like? I suggest that the idea of being “rooted” in helpfulness means you’re committed to helping everyone you know become everything God created them to be no matter how they treat you or anyone else. In other words, through the power of the Holy Spirit you never allow how anyone treats you to unsettle your commitment to their ultimate spiritual well being, and you treat them accordingly. To be “established” in helpfulness I suggests means that you’ve come to the realization that nothing else matters, that you really have nothing better to do than help others become what God created them to be. It seems the apostle is implying that being rooted and established in helpfulness like that is in a sense essential to experiencing the fulness of God.

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The Final Goal

I have done a great deal of questioning and thinking regarding just what is the primary purpose for humanity. I came back to a passage in Ephesians that I think could serve as an answer, but before I read it, let’s consider how some long-standing Christian traditions have answered that question. First consider the widely held Westminster Shorter Catechism. It teaches that the supreme purpose of man is to “glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “the primary purpose of humanity is to know, love, and serve God, and to thereby attain eternal happiness with Him” (CCC 1721, 1723). From a Lutheran perspective, “the primary purpose of humanity is to live out one's vocation in faith and service, trusting in God's grace and working for the well-being of others and the advancement of God's kingdom in the world.” (ChatGPT) In Anglican theology we find that “the primary purpose of humanity is to love and worship God, grow in holiness and sanctification, serve others with compassion and justice, and participate in God's mission of reconciliation and redemption in the world.” (ChatGPT) In Eastern Orthodox theology we find that “the primary purpose of humanity is union with God and participation in His divine nature through theosis” that is, “the process of sanctification, whereby humans are transformed by grace into the likeness of Christ.” (ChatGPT) Now here’s what I read in Ephesians 3:19 that I think could serve as an answer: What is the supreme purpose of humanity? To “be filled with all the fullness of God.” Now let’s ask, What gets us to that end? And the answer appears in the preceding verses: The Apostle Paul writes, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 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, 19 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)

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Outgrow Your Delusions

What does it mean to be growing spiritually? I suggest that it boils down to this: it is to always be outgrowing misconceptions of who we think God is. The reason I say this is so important is because literally every aspect of our lives mirrors what we actually believe God is like. Consequently, the more our thoughts of God line up with the truth of who he actually is, the greater our freedom and peace and joy and helpfulness. So blessed and growing is the person whose personal history “is littered with the debris of discarded misconceptions” of God.

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"The Hope of God’s Glory”

In Roman’s 5:2, we read what strikes me as a peculiar statement, “and we rejoice in the hope of God’s glory.” In seeking to understand this, let’s first consider the word, “hope”. Biblical hope is hardly what we think of when we hear that word. When we say, “I hope so,” we generally mean that we would like such-n-such to happen but it might not. Biblical hope is having a confident expectation in something that’s absolutely certain to happen. When God says, “this will happen” and you confidently expect it to happen you have what the Bible means by hope. So back to our phrase, the “hope of God’s glory.” It’s a sure thing. We are going to participate in it. That’s why we can already rejoice in it. But in what? What does the apostle mean by “God’s glory”? Perhaps we could define it as the sum of all that makes God so wonderful. And of all the qualities we could list, what I find outstanding beyond words to express is that he treats every aspect of his creation according to the value he’s placed upon it. And when it comes to us as human beings he has given us intrinsic, infinite value. He has made us as valuable to him as the blood of Jesus his Son in that Jesus laying down his life was the price of our redemption. So God always treats us according to this incommensurable value he’s placed upon us and within us. For all time and eternity no one will ever be able to say that God could have treated them even a tiny bit better than he did. No one. And I’m suggesting that that is his glory. And here’s the blessed hope: we are going to be made like that. The moment is coming when we too will treat everyone we meet with the same profound regard for their value to God as God himself does. So truly we can rejoice in the hope of God’s glory.

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We Do It Too

I don’t know that there is a verse in the Bible more searching in terms of how we see ourselves than this: Romans 2:1 (NET) “You are without excuse, whoever you are, when you judge someone else. For on whatever grounds you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.” By way of clarification, the Apostle Paul is referring to the kind of judging that looks down on others as being morally inferior or corrupt. With that in mind, perhaps a paraphrase might help: “You are without excuse, whoever you are, when you look down on someone else. For on whatever grounds you consider someone to be morally compromised, you condemn yourself, because you who look down on someone else’s behavior practice the same things.” What does the apostle mean? He can’t mean that the down-lookers do the exact same behaviors as those they look down on. I suggest he’s highlighting something deeper, that is, that everyone — without exception — has their own way of caving to their own moral weaknesses and frailties. Hence he’s saying, in effect, so you are looking down on someone else’s moral weakness? You had better have a good hard look at yourself and ask, just how am I doing at consistently overcoming my own moral frailties and weaknesses? And if we are going to be brutally honest with ourselves, we know that just as that person who’s behavior we can’t stand is simply caving to his weakness, we are no different because we cave to our weaknesses too. Hence we do the same thing as the very person we’re looking down on.

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A Mimicking Responsiveness

In yesterday’s podcast I suggested that responsiveness to the work of Jesus is at the heart of spiritual maturity. Why? Because Jesus lived like that in relationship to his Father. Consider the following: In John 5:19-20 (NET) Jesus said, 19 “…I tell you the solemn truth, the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. 20For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he does.” Notice that this means that the totality of Jesus’ actions were all merely a mimicking response to what God was doing. Perhaps that is why he said, “The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me.” (John 12:45) Nothing he did originated with him so anyone could see God in action just by looking at Jesus in action. Hence, the more the totality of our life is merely a mimicking response to Jesus the more it will be so that in seeing us in action others are seeing Jesus in action. That sounds to me like the essence of spiritual maturity.

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A Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday devotional meditation by Pastor Charlie Kelly.

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Charles Kelly
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© Charles Kelly
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