'That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.'--Eph.
iii. 19.
The Apostle's many-linked prayer, which we have been considering in
successive sermons, has reached its height. It soars to the very Throne
of God. There can be nothing above or beyond this wonderful petition.
Rather, it might seem as if it were too much to ask, and as if, in the
ecstasy of prayer, Paul had forgotten the limits that separate the
creature from the Creator, as well as the experience of sinful and
imperfect men, and had sought to 'wind himself too high for mortal life
beneath the sky.' And yet Paul's prayers are God's promises; and we are
justified in taking these rapturous petitions as being distinct
declarations of God's desire and purpose for each of us; as being the
end which He had in view in the unspeakable gift of His Son; and as
being the certain outcome of His gracious working on all believing
hearts.
It seems at first a paradoxical impossibility; looked at more deeply and
carefully it becomes a possibility for each of us, and therefore a duty;
a certainty for all the redeemed in fullest measure hereafter; and,
alas! a rebuke to our low lives and feeble expectations. Let us look,
then, at the petition, with the desire of sounding, as we may, its
depths and realising its preciousness.