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, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. – Ephesians 3:17-18

This morning in my Christian Education class we are in week four of a month-long look at “The Spiritual Journey,” using my book GET REAL as an outline. My “4-D’s” of discipleship are Desire, Discipline, Devotion and Daring.

So this week we are looking at the “heart” connection, and what it means to fall in love with God.

“Presbyterians,” my wife, Rebekah, often likes to say, “are really good at loving God with their minds. But it is when faith seeps through all the barriers and ends up resident in our hearts that powerful things tend to happen.”

Interestingly – and God always seems to arrange these kinds of “coincidences” when we are paying attention to faith – the song I am singing in church today fits nicely with the conversation. Listen to the words of the new verse I added a few days ago:

Love is God’s working definition
Grace is the word that puts love in play
Peace comes through grace’s repetition
God’s evidence in every day
It’s how we live…

And this is how we live redemption
The story of God’s generous love
All humankind without exception
Light and mercy from above
It’s how we live….

Love is the working definition of the word “God.” We will never really know God until we allow the relationship to be one where love is central. And we will never be authentic agents of grace until our behavior is driven by love; otherwise we are not so much practicing grace as good manners.

we will never be authentic agents of grace until our behavior is driven by love; otherwise we are not so much practicing grace as good manners.

We, then (inasmuch as we allow ourselves to fall in love with God) are evidences of God in this world. Paul put it this way in his letter to the Colossians: “God wanted to make the glorious riches of this secret plan known among the Gentiles, which is Christ living in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

We are supposed to be living evidence of what the world is looking for. When we fall in love with God so much that God’s love inhabits our graces, we become a strong message of love and of hope.

If our spiritual journey is not rooted in love we do not give hope so much as we give discouragement and we give judgement and we give tight-fisted religious practice. Grace – rooted in love – must be our calling card.

So this is my invitation to fill up on love and grace so much that the evidence of it spills out all over the place. This is God’s invitation, and our opportunity – DEREK