New Beginnings Set Free

The Depth of God’s Love

May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it.Ephesians 3:17-19

This prayer is not asking God for more head knowledge about his love but that we would understand and comprehend it—that it would really sink in and go from being head knowledge to heart knowledge about how very much he loves us. Most of all, it asks that we would experience for ourselves the love of Christ. Knowledge isn’t enough. Great speeches or sermons won’t suffice, neither will hearing what the Lord did in someone else’s life. It takes God’s Spirit imparting power to each of us to fathom the depth and length and width, the incomparable nature, of God’s amazing love for us in Christ Jesus. Just as Paul was praying earnestly for the Ephesian Christians, we are to ask that our roots would go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And as we continually pray this life-transforming prayer, we will drink deeply of God’s love. When we receive and experience the love of Christ in our own hearts, his love can flow through us to others.

LORD JESUS, I want to understand and experience your love in a deeper way than I ever have before. May your love be my anchor as your Spirit causes my roots to sink deeper in you. Grant me the power to understand the limitless extent of your love. Be the center of my life and reveal yourself to me today!

Boundless Love

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.John 3:16-17

It is a marvelous and profound truth that although God loves the whole world generally, he also loves us personally and individually so much that Christ died for each of us as if there were only one of us. Because of his love for us, he poured out his life on the cross while we were still sinners. He didn’t wait for us to get our lives all cleaned up and fixed up first—we couldn’t have anyway. Instead, he demonstrated his grace in saving us even though we didn’t deserve it. That would be amazing enough, yet this gift of love isn’t for just a few. It’s not just for me or a select group of people, for those in particular families, denominations, or nationalities—but for those from every tribe and tongue, people, group, and nation. We can hardly conceive of such a limitless, boundless love! But we can rejoice in the truth of John 3:16—everyone who believes in Jesus Christ will not perish but will have eternal life.

FATHER, thank you for loving me even beyond what I could ever imagine. It amazes me that you would love me—even when I didn’t love you—and would send your Son to pay the ultimate price so that I could know you and experience eternal life. Let your love flow through me so that even more people may experience your boundless love.

God’s love is measureless. It is more: it is boundless. It has no bounds because it is not a thing but a facet of the essential nature of God. His love is something he is, and because he is infinite, that love can enfold the whole created world in itself and have room for ten thousand times ten thousand worlds beside.

Victory over Compromise

Instead of praying that God will help you not to get caught cheating, or that someone won’t know you lied, pray about these things instead:

Wisdom to know the difference. Maybe you’re not sure if this specific thing will compromise your relationship with God or not. Seek his wisdom. He’s more than ready to give you solid direction when you ask.
Discernment. Discernment is honed wisdom. It allows you to be more than just “generally wise.” Discernment helps you assess specific situations and know from the inside out whether or not it’s right.
Knowledge. If you are rationalizing something and it’s not right in God’s eyes, you want to know about it! So pray for that knowledge. That’s why daily time spent with God in prayer and Bible reading is so important—it gives you a chance to ask God if there’s anything in your life that’s not right. Then it’s his responsibility to help you know what it is. And when he brings it to your mind—when you have knowledge of it—seek his forgiveness and commit it to him. So go ahead. Let him look underneath your cot and inside your closet. Give him your locker and your diary. Surrender your relationships and your heart. Commit to him your will and your desires.
If you’re serious about wanting to avoid compromise in your walk with God, consider praying the following:

Lord, sometimes I move so fast, I forget to stop and think about if what I’m doing is really okay in your sight. I hurry to keep up with my friends, . . . when I should be hurrying to keep myself saturated in your Word.

I don’t want to compromise, Father. My desire is to live a life that’s pleasing to you. I need your discernment, your wisdom, and your strength. Help me to discipline myself daily to establish those attributes in my life. Help me to work at them—practice them—until they become part of my lifestyle. I want to live with integrity, never compromising. Never rationalizing.

Help me to be like Joshua—standing strong when the pressure rises. I don’t want to buckle when I feel the tension. But “as for me and my house . . . I WILL serve the Lord.” Amen.