When God's Love Moves In

If you’ve ever read or seen the Harry Potter story, you might recall that following the death of his parents Harry is taken to live with the Dursley family, who are his aunt, uncle and cousin. But they only give him the cupboard under the stairs because they don’t want him, or anything he does, to impact their family or their way of life. So they keep him away from everything important. They even go as far as leaving him at home for birthday celebrations or locking him in the cupboard when guests come over.

But the thing is, it never actually works. Harry’s magical powers still manage to appear despite the Dursley’s best efforts to hide him.

Their experience highlights something we know to be true, if we truly let someone into our lives then somethings will have to change.

If a person visits for a weekend or even week, it’s fairly easy, you offer hospitality and try to practice your best manners. And then, soon enough, they are gone, and things simply return to normal.

But if that person moves in to stay, say when you get married, everything changes. At first you might try to hold on to your familiar patterns and routines, forcing the new member to accommodate you and stay out of your way.

But that’s impossible, eventually they make their mark. Conversations change. Relationships realign. Household chores increase. Responsibilities shift.

That sort of life-altering change is what Paul prays will happen for the church in Ephesus. He says to them, “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.”

He doesn’t just pray that they would know that God’s love exists, though that’s important too, but he prays that because the church knows God’s love that they would be changed from the inside out.

Because when God’s love moves in, something has to change. Things can’t remain the same. Such news is still true today. When Christ dwells in our hearts, there is no mere tweaking of old patterns, instead everything must change.

It’s the power of God’s love. A power that is still at work in ways that are beyond anything we could possibly imagine.

Grace and peace,

Kimmy