To Overflow with The Love of God

UV 4228/10000 Overflow with Love And this I pray, that your love may abound more and more ( displaying itself in greater depth) in real knowledge and practical insight, Philippians 1 v 9 Just as knowledge of the world is broken into so many different branches and subjects and topics, the personal knowledge of God is broken into different branches – knowledge of the power of God-this enables us to exercise our faith effectively, knowledge of the wisdom of God- this enables us to be wise and insightful in the conduct of our affairs, knowledge of the love of God- this enables us to truly grow in spiritual terms, in maturity, in fruitfulness. To be an effective man or woman of God, we need to grow in all three branches of personal knowledge of God- knowledge of the power of God, knowledge of the wisdom of God, knowledge of the love of God. Paul’s prayer for the early believers of Christ was that their love would increase and manifest itself in true knowledge and wisdom. Paul elsewhere upheld love as the most excellent of Christian virtue or fruit of the spirit. We are to be built up in the love of Christ, edified, strengthened. But our love should not just be emotional or intellectual but needs to be manifest in practical, real and sensible ways. In order to do so, we need spiritual discernment and insight. Our love for God needs to be growing even as His love for us is limitless and unfathomable. It needs to grow to the point of overflowing or being abundant in good deeds, practical ways of helping people around us or whom the Lord has placed in our lives. The uni-verse highlights the need for prayer for grace and help to be able to see the qualities of love manifested in our families, churches and in all our relationships. We need to pray for the increase in love of the people we are relating to. By knowing the extent of the love of Christ for us, we are able to grow in the insight of what love really means. We should know the length to which Christ would go to help us, to deliver us, to enable us. We know in our heart that there is no limit to His love for He went to the cross and then, the grave for our sakes. We should then ask if we ourselves are able to go the extra mile for others around us. We need to know the width of His love – how inclusive is His love, what are the aspects of our lives that are encompassed by His love. There is nothing that is excluded- our time, our abilities, our needs, our hopes, our ambitions, our fears, our desires, our thoughts. Likewise we ought to extend the boundaries of our love to include all people and all things. The third dimension of love of Christ that we need to understand and know is the depth. How deep is the love of Christ for us? Is our love superficial or deep for God and others? The fourth dimension is the height of love- are we prepared to follow and set a new benchmark in terms of our love for God and man? Our love needs to grow in terms of all these four dimensions, inward, outward, upward and sideways- in all directions. The Holy Spirit is able to reveal the practical ways we need to change in order to conform to the love of Christ. We only need to be sensible enough to practice it in our day to day lives.