PRAYING FOR NEW BELIEVERS (PART 3)

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 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.

Ephesians 3:17b-18

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Have you ever been loved perfectly in life?

No one has when it comes to worldly love because no one in the world is a perfect person. Everyone is flawed and that goes for loving one another as we should.

That’s right. We haven’t been perfectly loved by anyone and we haven’t loved others perfectly. We should keep this in mind the next time we entertain thoughts of criticizing another person’s lack of loving. It’s easy to point the finger at someone else but not as simple pointing back at oneself.

Well, since no one loves perfectly, we should all be yearning for a higher level of love that we experience here on earth.

Enter Jesus.

In yesterday’s message, the second in this series on praying for new believers, we saw where the Apostle Paul hoped that the new Christians in Ephesus would allow Jesus to dwell in their hearts through faith. We were reminded that at the root of being Christian is Christ. Without Him, there obviously would be no Christianity.

So what happens when a new believer (or experienced one) allows Jesus to abide within their hearts?

Two things.

First, the Christian will fully encounter the pure, unmitigated love of Christ, the One who loves perfectly.

Want perfect love in your life?

Believe in Jesus by faith and let Him fill you up with all that He is, to include His love. When we do this, we receive a love like we have never had before, a love that is unconditional, a love that fills us to overflow.

This is the love Paul wished that the Ephesian Christians, like all “the Lord’s holy people”, would feel “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ”.

But this wasn’t all the Apostle hoped for. For love isn’t just about getting it; it’s also about giving it away.

You see, when we allow the perfect love of Jesus to fill us to overflow, then we can in turn love others as He loves. We have the opportunity to extend His love to everyone we meet and, in doing so, let those being loved see a glimpse of the Jesus who saved them. We do this with the hope that they too might become new creations in Christ themselves.

Today and every day, this should be our prayer for all believers, new and old. That they would allow the love of Jesus to consume them so they might be able to show that love to others and lead them to put their faith and trust in the Savior who died to save them.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com