exceedingly & abundantly more

"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 is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.  Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think."  Ephesians 3:18-21

We are so priveleged to be a people who not only live life with full capacity to think, dream, encourage, inspire, and have vision, but also to be a people who have one gift that is rare and invaluable according to Jesus; we have the ability to understand.  When children are small and they cause trouble, they don't always have the capacity to understand why they have to spend time in solitude, but as they grow, their capacity to understand broadens, and, in turn, they begin to associate consequences with actions.  As negative consequences begin to outweigh the benefits of certain actions, those children (hopefully) begin to understand what it means to live upstanding lives and how to embrace character as they grow and mature.  The same concept is true in the Christian life.  When we first start believing, we cannot process things based upon our own understanding of them, because all things are new to us.  But as we grow and mature in Christ and are developed by His love and grace, our capacity to understand the things of the Lord begins to broaden and thus we develop character and endurance, which in turn lead to our victory. 

In the book of Matthew, Jesus is addressing the multitudes and he is teaching lessons by speaking in parables (the parable of the sower, the parable of the wheat and weeds, the parable of the mustard seed, etc...) and his disciples ask him why he speaks to them plainly while he speaks to the multitudes in parables.  Jesus responds "To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge."  Knowledge and wisdom come through Christ at the highest level, but on our level, those attributes come from the ability to listen, to comprehend, and ultimately to understand.  Friends, it's a set-apart honor to be able to understand what happens when you fully surrender to God and He, in turn, begins to do a mighty work within you.

The Lord did say that we will never fully understand how great His love is for us.  His love for us is something greater than we'll ever be able to comprehend.  However we should be encouraged in knowing that as we begin to understand the goodness of the Lord and we begin to see and comprehend His miraculous works we in turn begin to grasp that He can and will do exceedingly and abundantly more than we could ever ask for or think about.  Our mindsets shift from a question of His ability to an understanding of His sovereignty.  Once we understand that He's able, we have to lay it all out before Him, surrender our whole lives in worship, and wait on the Lord to do exactly what He's able to do.  He'll change hearts; He'll bring people far away to close proximity with him; He'll heal brokenness, insecurity, anxiety; He'll bless people in overflow; He'll make a way out of no way!  We have the ability and capacity to understand, now we must believe in the distinct privelege He's given us and surrender it all to see the power of His glory!

Out of the overflow of our worship and surrender comes the ability to understand His grace and power which are what make His blessings possible.