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How Deep the Father’s Love for Us ~ Nicole Nordeman
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my [brimming] cup runs over. ~ Psalm 23:5 AMPC
As an adult, have you ever asked a small child to guess your height? The younger the child, the grander the answers, as they likely have no idea. If a small child, who can see you, can’t figure out how tall you are, how are we to grasp the amount of God’s love, whom we have never seen?
Ephesians 3:17-19 lay out a prayer that the Church would have the power to grasp the size of the love of Christ, and would be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” How can you even fathom the fullness of God, let alone be filled to its measure? First of all, the measure of the fullness of God is not like a level cup; it’s full to overflowing. If you dumped the water from an olympic-sized swimming pool into a thimble-sized container, you’d start to form an idea of “full to overflowing,” but it would still be a far cry from how much God wants to pour into us. And yet, a child of God, who’s been anointed with oil--representative of Holy Spirit--is being filled to full and overflowing with God’s love.
The secret isn’t in the container, or the action of holding what God pours into our containers. The secret is receiving with the expectation that whatever God pours into your life will overflow onto the lives of those around you. The jars of clay into which God breathed His life were not created with the ability, let alone capacity, to contain all that God longs to pour into our lives, (2 Corinthians 4:7). Why? Because His ultimate goal is not to make your life bigger, better, higher, grander, or more comfortable than everyone else’s. Rather, His charge, to us who follow Him, is that we would be a conduit, river, and cup overflowing, letting His love flow to, captivate, and change the hearts and lives of others.
If you have been feeling dry, it’s time to open and humble your heart, and come back to the presence of Father God, who longs to pour His love on you. And if you are being filled, but still feel empty, it’s time to find, and surround yourself with, others to whom you can be a conduit, river, and cup overflowing. It’s only when we’re abiding in His presence as an open vessel--not trying to grab it all for ourselves--that we can truly live full to overflowing.
©Heather Potts 2021
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