Ephesians 3:17

So my favorite passage is basically Ephesians 3:14-21. When I got to that a couple of days ago, I decided to take it one verse at a time to ensure that I had enough time to go through it. Today was verse 17. But Ill write the whole passage for context. Paul is finishing the INCREDIBLE position in Christ three chapter beginning of Ephesians with a prayer for the Ephesian Church.

"14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love
18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen" KJV

The first word that caught my eye was faith. I had asked God a question in the Psalms today about how to do something and, well, that was the answer. Christ dwelling in me through my faith in Him. That is how you accomplish EVERYTHING in this life. Now I have studied this passage at length, as it is my favorite. But today, God proved that His word truly is ALIVE and breathing. How? He gave me more nuggets. The word "rooted" has its obvious biblical definitions. So does "grounded." Last summer I was doing a study on this passage, and I wrote this about this verse

"Paul is still praying for the Ephesians. BECAUSE they ARE rooted (as a tree is rooted) and grounded (as a building has a foundation) in love (agape)...
We are to be rooted in agape. When there is a dry spell in an area, the trees there grow their roots further down. When there is a dry spell in my Christian walk (i.e. I don't hear God's voice) I should be deepening my roots in His Word so that when He does speak, I soak up much more of it. Grounded speaks of laying a foundation in our lives. Christ is to be the cornerstone of our heart. Eph 2:20. Everything we build in our lives should be in respect to Him. When building a house, the construction workers lay the cornerstone first, and then use that as reference for the rest of the building. It is also the PUREST and the STRONGEST stone in the house. In my Spiritual walk I am to be weighing everything I see or learn against Christ and what I know about Him. Phi 4:8. In LOVE. We are to think of everything in the mindset of love, of agape love. Agape is the love that God has for us, so it is not fully understandable in our feeble human brains."

Ok, thats cool. But its completely intellectual and doesn't seem to have anything from the Holy Spirit there. So today, reading this verse for the thousandth time and putting God in a box again saying "God, I've worked this verse to death. Theres nothing more there." God responded with an "Oh, really? What about this?"
Yes, what I wrote last summer is true. But there's another aspect to being rooted and grounded. Specifically being rooted and grounded in the love of Christ. In verse three of Psalm one we read "And he [the righteous man] shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." KJV...Why will this tree stay green even during dry spells? Because it is drawing water from the river. So basically, the reason the tree stays fruitful is because its roots are ever drawing from the river. It is drinking water all the time. We are to be rooted in LOVE. That is, drawing our food and our strength from the LOVE of Christ that He planted in us. That love will nourish our entire being and bring forth fruit in our lives. It will travel throughout the entire tree and feed every cell, as Christs love should do for us.

"Grounded" in the Bible most often speaks of the foundation of a building, of setting those foundations. The Greek word here is themelioo. Yeah, I know. That clears everything up. This word means either to lay a foundation or to make stable or establish. This morning, God showed me another illustration of that word. Its not something to build a theological house on, as the original Greek does not imply this, but I thought it was really cool. Well, I guess I could stretch the second meaning to go with this but...ok Ill just say it. Lightning rods ground a building. So if the building gets struck by lightning than the charge hits the rod and goes harmlessly into the ground. If someone hurts me with word, deed, or even physically, I should allow that "lightning" to travel through my body and go harmlessly into love. Does that make sense? The charge passes through me without damaging me and falls into the pool of Love that Christ put there and is absorbed by the agape that He placed in my life. I thought that was such a cool illustration.

So we draw our strength from Jesus love and we let our hurts soak in it. They will dissolve, because love is a universal solvent.

So go, be rooted and grounded in love!

"The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." (Numbers 6:24-26 KJV)

Your sister in the Living Christ
Stephanie

I hit a car...

Let me start off by saying that I haven't ridden a bike in God knows how long...last time I remember was in China. Five years ago. That being said, today I had to go to Wal-Mart. It is about a 30 minute walk there and another 30 minutes back. I had 1 hour 15 minutes before dinner, and HAD to go today (the stores are closed Friday, Sunday and Monday for Easter and I'll be away Saturday). So I'm at the light in front of the school and Jessica comes up with a bike and asks what I'm doing.
"I'm going to Wal-Mart"
"Do you want a bike?"
"Um...yeah, I guess so. How do you work the lock?"
She showed me and I was off. A little wobbly to begin with, but then again not bad for being out of practice. At the first intersection I realized that the brakes don't work. Ok, I'll just have to give myself plenty of time to stop then.
A little further down I see this car pull out in front of me (10 meters ahead of me) about to pull out into the street. I try to stop, to no avail, and then at the last minute try to go around the car. Because I am going slower than I should be going, I fall right over into the guy's car and...yeah.

He got out, looking very angry. "Es tut mir Leid" I said, hoping that my almost-but-not-quite-German would hold up. He looked VERY upset and proceeded to start looking at his car. Mustering up the best "pathetic-oh-so-sorry" look that I could, I just watched in horror as he found what he was looking for--a scratch on his headlight. "Was soll ich tun?" I said as his eyebrows fell to his chin. He said that normally, in this situation, he would get my address and a phone number and we would work something out. I kept looking pathetic and he went back to picking at the scratch in his light. About three minutes later, he looked at me and told me that it was ok, and that I could go. I left before he could change his mind.

phew! I almost had to pull out the I'm-a-student-and-don't-know-the-area card. But I don't know how to say all that in German.