How do we grow in the knowledge and experience of Christ's love? Sometimes, by the grace of God, we are surprised by Christ's love. We might not even be looking for it, and suddenly, it comes across our path. I remember a time in 2002, when I was working in England during a gap year after school. I was going through a really tough stage. One day, I read Luke 15 about the lost son, and out of nowhere, that story struck me deeply. I fell to my knees and said, "Lord, if this is your love, I want to know you." It was a moment of grace that came like a lightning bolt.
Other times, experiencing God's love involves our invitation towards faith practices—our prayer life, study, and quiet moments before God. Importantly, we also experience God's love in a community of believers. Paul tells us that together with God's holy people, we grasp the love of God. When he speaks of "you," he is speaking in the plural. We grow and experience together as a singular body of Christ. A Christian writer once said, "It is a very vain thing for Christian individuals or groups to imagine that they can better attain the fullness of spiritual maturity if they isolate themselves from fellow believers." It's actually arrogant to think we can reach spiritual maturity without the rest of the fellowship. It is in community that we get to know God's love.
So, let us come together in prayer, asking the Lord to let us experience His love. Say this prayer aloud as you come before the Lord again and share this prayer with your fellowship in Christ:
"For this reason, we kneel before you, Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. We pray that out of your glorious riches you may strengthen us with power through your Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. And we pray that we, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all your holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of you, O Lord. To you who are able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to your power that is at work within us, to you be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
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