Living in the Fullness of God’s Love

is it something that you like to have you know it's there if if you're taken desperately ill or a loved one is or if you're suddenly confronted by a loss of your income or if some disaster happens or if you're on your desk but then you can turn to it ah it's nice to have it in the background but that isn't where it's meant to be that isn't the kind of thing the Apostle is praying for for these Ephesians in his prayer it isn't some Reserve you can fall back on it isn't some emergency station you can ring up and be assured of help when you do so it's unexamined and it's largely unused [00:12:05]

do we know what it is to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner men is Christ Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith do we know with All Saints the depth the breadth and the length and the depth and the height and to know this Love Of Christ which passees knowledge that we might be filled with all the fullness of God are we are we concerned is this Central to us is this vital where does Christianity come in our lives yes those of us who are Christian is it something that we are only remember on Sunday morning I wonder and forget even the rest of Sunday leave alone weekdays [00:12:48]

well first of all it must mean this that God dwells in Us in such a way as absolutely to control us and all our faculties if we are filled with all the fullness of God will it follows I think of necessity by a logical inevitability that God controls the whole of our life he controls if you like our cognitions our feelings and our outward actions men must be thought of ever in terms of his mind and his heart and his will and if we are filled with all the fullness of God it means that God is controlling us in the mind the realm of cognition in the heart the feelings the sensibilities and in the realm of the will the outward actions and all our activities [00:14:50]

the difference between a man who's not a Christian and a Christian is that whereas the non-Christian mind is controlled by the world this man's mind has been transformed and has been renewed by the Holy Spirit and the result is that this man is now able to think in a spiritual manner whereas formerly he couldn't now there's a great exposition of this as you recall in the second chapter of Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians where he says that the natural mind the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God he says that the are foolishness unto him [00:17:40]

if we are filled with all the fullness of God if Christ dwells in our hearts by faith we have the mind of Christ it's inevitable and the Apostle claims it in other words he says that the man who is filled with all the fullness of God is a man who can think spiritually and this is a very wonderful thing there is to me nothing more glorious nothing in a sense more romantic about the Christian life than the way it entirely changes a man's type of thinking his whole mode and method of thinking [00:18:56]

when God controls our hearts self has gone out and that is really all that need be said when the love of God comes in the love of self goes out and of course when the love of self goes out and the love of God comes in we begin to love others it was all there in the 12th chapter of Romans but look at this great example of it that notable example in the case of Steven the Martyr Steven there he is condemned unjustly being Stone to death but what he said was this Lord lay not this sin to their charge [00:23:14]

do you remember that great statement of his in writing to the Corinthians first epistle fourth chapter he says with me it is a very small thing that I be judged of you or of any men's judgment yay I judge not my own self what a transformation there was a time when this man was very sensitive to judgment he judged others and he hated being judged himself being criticized but he says don't worry it's gone it's a very small thing with me that i' be judged of you or of any man's judgment I judge not my know self that means that this man was filled with the love of God and the love of self and concern about self had gone out [00:24:53]

I came not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me that's it even the son of God didn't hold on to his prerogatives he humbled himself he became a servant and he set aside his own will and all he said and all he did was the will of the father I came not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me H but it wasn't only true of of the Lord himself you know this is equally true of the Apostle Paul [00:25:12]

a man who is filled with all the fullness of God is a man whose every SP spiritual aim and Instinct are satisfied all his spiritual aims and instincts are satisfied why well he is filled with all the fullness of God you see the moment we are born again the moment we are regenerated the moment this new principle of life is put into us the moment we become partakers of the divine nature there are new instincts new desires new names new objectives and these begin to stir and we are anxious to have their fulfillment and when we are filled with all the fullness of God they are fulfilled and they are satisfied [00:29:23]

the moment you have this life within you you begin to have a desire that You've never known before to know God I didn't say to know about God I said to know him to know God you see the psalmist KN it as the heart tth after the water Brook so panteth my heart after thee Oh God my soul thirsteth for God for the Living God When shall I come and appear before God do you know that desire has that Desire been satisf that I might know him this is life eternal that they might know the the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent [00:30:28]

a child of God longs to be filled with love himself he's unhappy because of an absence of Love Lord it is my chief complaint that my love is weak and faint he's unhappy about that he wants to love God more he wants to love Christ more he wants to be filled with love to his fellow men and women and he reads 1 Corinthians 13 and he says that's how I should be I want to be like that I want to be filled with this love I want to be an exemplify of it and you see when a man is filled with all the fullness of God he becomes like that because the fruit of the spirit is first and foremost love [00:32:33]