ROOTED AND GROUNDED IN LOVE

“For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:14-19)

There are a few fundamental questions we do well to pose to our own hearts: How am I being rooted and grounded in love? Do I know, with the depth of authentic knowing, that Christ dwells in my heart by faith? Where do I experience being strengthened in my inner being with power through the Spirit? These questions have bearing on the health of our spiritual practice. As church leaders, do we offer ourselves to God before and through all the ways we offer ourselves to those we serve? I invite you to ponder these questions and to note your reflections in response. They are not abstract questions. The way you answer them will reveal a great deal to you about the health of your root system for the growing plant of your active ministry. If our spiritual roots do not dig deep into the soil of God’s love, if they have not yet twined around and beyond some of the buried stones blocking nourishment from that soil, then our ministry will be stunted, top-heavy, or easily uprooted.

-- Marjorie J. Thompson, excerpt from an article entitled “Rooted and Grounded in Christ,” in “Leading from the Center”


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