Greater Minds And Hearts

A. Eph. 3:17-19, “. . . that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend
with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height; to know the love of Christ
which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Why should we desire to have greater powers of comprehension? Most of us do have
such a desire. We’d like to have our hearts and minds enlarged. And a greater capacity for
understanding is a worthy aspiration. But , the question is: To what use would we put such a
wonderful gift? Why do we wish for it?
a. The human mind is a vessel meant to be filled with God. But the sin which alienates us
from God shrivels our mind, shrinking its capacity for understanding the knowledge of
God. If we seek deliverance from sin, one of the greatest reasons for doing so, is that
we long to have a heart that can know more of God.
(A) What we sometimes do with our minds would be described as “prostitution.” That’s
because, we take an instrument made for God’s glory and misuse it pursuing things
of far less value, things which are both unworthy and at the same time, quite
selfish.
And when we aren’t actually prostituting our minds, we’re often guilty of simply neglecting them. We don’t really apply ourselves to the work of learning about God, and so the spiritual insight that we have begins to atrophy, waste away and diminish. We need to hear Paul’s admonition to Timothy: “Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them.” 1 Tim. 4:15.
2. In this prayer, Paul wants his brethren to gain a greater ability to “comprehend” deep spiritual realities. His desire was that they might “know the love of Christ which passes knowledge and be filled with all the fullness of God.” We need to know the God who has made us and loved us. Because we need to know more of Him than we can know with our present limitations. We must have greater minds and hearts.
(1) And since the highest use of our mind is to know God, the ability to know God more fully and glorify Him more properly is the noblest goal to which our intellect can aspire.
(2) Acts 20:32.

Spur - 02/05/03 pm