Our Greatest Need
Last night, I was having a time of seeking God’s face and I was crying out desperately for more of Him, for more of His Spirit. So often I feel like there’s more - something that I am missing. I read of the lives of great revivalists and their stories of being baptized in the Spirit and I think, “Wow, I’ve never encountered God like that. (The encounters that they had with God were extreme.) I need more.”
I often think in order to move out into the things God has called me to, which can seem overwhelming, that I just need more. I need to encounter Him first, hear Him speak, whatever that looks like. (Not that I haven’t encountered Him, but I just felt like there is so much more.)
But God stopped me in my tracks and asked me to lay that down. To surrender to Him my need of that. To serve Him even if I never experience that. In fact, He said that even if I didn’t feel anything, that doesn’t mean He is not there. He said that everything I need is inside of me.
He brought me to the verse, Ephesians 3:19 which says, May you “know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
God showed me, while I was crying out for more of His Spirit, that what I really needed – what we all need – is, not more power or anointing (first and foremost), but a “revelation of His great love for us.” For it is through this “revelation” that we are “filled to the measure” of “all the fullness of God.”
Do you want all of God? Do you desire to walk in the fullness of all He’s called you to? Do you long to be like Him in every way? Then what you need, what I need, is to “know His love.”
Yes, according to His word, this love is beyond human understanding, but God would not have told us to seek it and know it if were not possible to comprehend it. We cannot understand it with human thoughts, but through our spirits.
He longs to make His love known to us, for He desires all to be “filled to the measure of His fullness.” That is what will change us and as a result, change the world around us.
When we are filled to the measure it means there is room for nothing else – not sin, not pride, not selfishness, not lust, not anger or fear. Are these things you struggle with? I know I do. That is why we need a revelation of His love in our lives. If we are so filled with His love, those things will have no place in us.
“Perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18) (Among other things.)
When we are filled with His love, we have ALL of Him - the fullness of God!
Recently I watched the movie Raggamuffin,which is about the life of Rich Mullins. (What an inspiring movie!) In that movie, Brennan Manning says, “I am utterly convinced that on judgment day, the Lord Jesus will ask one question and only one question: Did you believe that I loved you?”
At first I didn’t know what to think of this. But God is giving me this revelation of my desperate need to know His love. Without it, I am just going through the motions. Without it, I will have no true impact. Without it, I will continue to struggle with sin, lack of joy and fear.
“His love is better than life.” (Psalm 63:3)
There is so much more I could say, but I’ll end with this quote. I don’t think it can be said any better than this.
Brennan Manning said, in His book – Abba’s Child, “Define yourself radically as one loved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.”
“God, would you give us a revelation of your love, that we might be filled, fully and completely by you? We know that this is our deepest need and the only thing that will truly cause us to be all you’ve called us to be. We are desperate for it. Come Lord and make your love known.”
