Imagine that you hire us to survey your inheritance, a vast parcel of land. After some weeks I come back to you with a map in my hand with a vague outline of your property. You ask me, "What is this? Is this supposed to be a survey?"
"Your land is vast! It is huge! What a wonderful, glorious piece of property you have! Words fail to describe it! Mere numbers cannot measure it! I am humbled by your tract's majesty. The sheer magnitude of your parcel renders me speechless. Amen."
"Mark, I'll see you in court."
Have you ever heard anybody gush about the love of Christ? Does it sound like that survey I describe above? "Vast! Huge! Indescribable! Beyond measure!" It all sounds very right, a very correct attitude. It conveys that you are really impressed by something that's really impressive. Thanks, I guess.
Ephesians 3:14-19
I bow my knees before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory,
to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth
and length
and height
and depth,
and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
If you are a believer, you are a surveyor. Paul is sending us out to the field, giving us instructions to conduct our survey. Our subject parcel is the Love of Christ. He gives us the scope of services.
- Establish benchmarks and control points. All collected data will be adjusted to these monuments. "Be rooted and grounded in love."
- Take measurements and record the data. "What is the breadth and length and height and depth?"
- Process the data and analyze it. "Know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God."
Yes, it sounds contradictory. To know something which "surpasses knowledge". To contain the uncontainable. "Filled up to all the fullness of God". I didn't say it, the Survey Manager did.
Notice the part where Paul says, "Comprehend with all the saints." We're not to go out alone. We go out as a field crew. We need several sets of eyes. We need some backup, some help carrying stuff, help chopping brush, help finding monuments, someone to drive if we get snakebit. And when the data is collected, we need someone to organize the data, someone to put together the plat, someone to count the cost. In a mom-and-pop shop, a few people wear different hats, and in a larger shop, the are folks who specialize. But however it happens, it is to happen with all. There is no room for someone who is eating overhead, someone who is not billable to the client. Everybody pitches in.
Is a picture starting to form here? The love of Christ is not some amporphous blob. It appears among His people as a very definite thing. Just because a thing is vast does not mean that it can't be described. The love of Christ has a shape. It has contours. It can be looked at from different angles.
Paul desires that being "rooted and grounded in love" that we would "be able to comprehend with all the saints" the Northing, Easting and Elevation of the love of Christ. And though he says it "surpasses knowlege", we are to know it anyway. And though it seems even a fraction of the "fullness of God" would cause any vessel to burst at the seams, he desires us to be filled up with all of it.
Who are we to question the Survey Manager? Let's load up the truck. Let's make some detailed maps together.
Mark, as I read this..I had 2 thoughts emerging. You mentioned points of reference, and dimensions. As to points..I believe that we spend the early part of our Christian walk/adventure/survey noting these important points valuing and comparing them to others. Those points alone cannot give us an "image" or vision of what is really there until we begin to connect those points and let the "connections" grant us the "invisible" image to be manifested.
ReplyDeleteChrist is the image of the Invisible God (Col. 1) and He is made up of each body member, even the unseemly/uncomely ones (as Paul mentions in ICor.12). Every "dot" or member is needful.
I used to believe that the important thing is to collect as many reference points (dots) as possible and the one with the most "dots" will be highly rewarded. But the reference points mean nothing without connecting the lines to the dots. That is the Spirits job as we live and interact with one another and God. That interaction must be through love and not just gathering and comparing "points"
Agape relationship with God and one another is what will bring it all together, even for the unseen realm to see marvel and worship Eph 3:10.
I also visualized that when all the "dots" are connected we may discover an image of more than three dimenensions..four or MORE!
Thanks for stimulating the spirit of our minds.
Hi Charlie, I see that you got the comment section to work and put your Facebook comment here. I'll follow it with my FB response to that comment, so that we can have our remarks in a place where the non-FB guys can read them.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first shared the survey analogy to the gathering, I hadn't yet noticed the allegory of the benchmark. Any measurement of elevation is "rooted and grounded" as Paul says. A physical survey is referenced to sea level. But a spiritual survey derives its reference from love. Love is the coordinate system, the global frame of reference. It's the basis by which we can speak about the latitude and longitude and elevation of the love of Christ as we explore the frontier.
When we start a project, we ask the project manager what the coordinate basis will be. Will it be "assumed" coordinates or will it be "real world" coordinates? A map with assumed coordinates just hangs out there in the air. It is internally consistent, but has no reference to the ground. We know plenty of spiritual surveys which are internally consistent, but fail to connect to the real world. And surprisingly, Paul is indicating the frame of reference for all the measurements of the love of Christ are rooted in love for one another (and he doesn't qualify it with a highbrow theological description).
In other words, like the fear of God is the beginning (benchmark) of wisdom, the love of the brothers is the beginning of the knowledge of the Love of Christ and Fullness of God.
I like this Mark. I never considered love being the "benchmark." In my job as a test technician of high voltage power equipment, I see the importance of "benchmark" also. It is the key reference point from which all other test results (points/dots) are measured and diagnostic data established, even predictive maintenance can be ascertained so that catastrophic equipment failures can be avoided.
ReplyDelete