Surpassing All Knowledge

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  Mark 12:30

Kenneth Boa writes, “The great prayers of Ephesians 1, Philippians 1, and Colossians 1 reveal that Paul’s deepest desire for his readers was that they grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.”  Paul’s desire was for Jesus’ disciples to have a deep knowledge of Christ, that they experience God personally, beyond a mere belief Jesus was savior, for discipleship is more than belief, it is living within the fullness of Christ (John 15:1-17).  To this very moment a follower of Christ is to be experiencing the Lord’s presence, so that, as you pray God fills you with wisdom and revelation of the completeness of His will through the love of Christ—beyond anything that could be imagined, indeed, surpassing all knowledge (see Eph 1:17-19; 3:17b-19).  The same desire Paul had for early believers, is the same desire to hold for yourself and for whom you share Christian community with.    

Your place in God has a meaning you or I may never be able to explain, for it is surrounded and kept by the love of Christ, who fills us with the Holy presence of Himself, His Spirit.  From out of tradition we have passed down to us a story about Thomas Aquinas.  As Aquinas worked on writing his great work, the Summa Theologica, he, one day, simply stopped working on it.  When asked why he had stopped, he said, “All that I have written seems like straw compared to what has now been revealed to me.”  This was birthed from a vision he had had, in which the Lord asked, “Thomas, you have written well of me; what shall be your reward?”  With that Thomas could only pour from his heart an answer that was the fruit of the Spirit, the reflection of experiencing Christ’s humble love, by saying, “No reward but yourself, Lord.”  Likewise Thomas Aquinas understood and embraced the same heart as Paul, who wrote, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ” (Philippians 3:7). 

Allow the below prayer to resonate within your heart, take it into your prayer and meditation, in hope that you open fully to Christ and gain for His love the filling that surpasses all knowledge.

            Prayer of St. Richard of Chichester (1197-1253):

Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ,
For all the benefits thou hast won for me,
For all the pains and insults thou hast borne for me.

O most merciful Redeemer, Friend, and Brother,
May I know thee more clearly,
Love thee more dearly,
And follow thee more nearly:
For ever and ever.

            Amen

Surpassing all knowledge, through God’s glory,

Owen <><