God's grace is beauty, shining in unlikely moments. He reminds me that He loves me because I am His, not because I act like His. He answers prayers because I am His, not because I ask correctly.
I bow on my knees before the Father... that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength 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, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:15-19
Rooted and ground in love. God's love founds knowledge and filling. His power and peace pour from his love that surpasses knowledge.
And here is his astonishing answer. Verse 17 {John 7}: "If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority." I remember sometime in the fall of 1967 at Wheaton College being shocked when someone brought this to my attention—that right willing is the foundation of right knowing. It seemed at the time to make life more complicated, more mysterious, and certainly less under my control. Less rationalistic. The intellectual task of knowing truth suddenly became a moral task, and a spiritual task. ~~John Piper, "Willing God's Will As A Way of Knowing Christ's Word"
My state of learning and study doesn't matter. Unable to snatch even a few quiet moments to open the Word, yet I am immersed in the truth of God's grace more tangibly than any reading can provide. God has made my heart right willing that my foundation in hardship is right knowing. Grace sprouting in my life from the wrong spot.
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