Rooted and Established

Wednesday - February 23rd

Scripture to Read Today: Ephesians 3:14-21

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I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.

Ephesians 3:17-18

Today, I want to geek-out a bit with you. My master's degree from seminary had a heavy dose of the biblical languages. God led me to Capital Bible Seminary just outside of Washington D.C. This seminary required more Old Testament Hebrew and New Testament Greek than most seminaries at the time. I sensed God leading me to be stretched academically in this area, and my time at Capital was no disappointment (tough, but not disappointing).

I even taught New Testament Greek at my undergraduate Alma Mater, Appalachian Bible College, for a couple of years. That is when I really learned Greek! When you have to teach it to many students who are smarter than you and eager to learn, you truly learn it or get eaten alive by your students.

One of my favorite grammatical devices in biblical Greek is how the perfect tense communicates a verb's action. A Greek verb in the perfect tense emphasizes completed action with continuing results. So, for example, when Christ cried out, "It is finished," on the cross, he literally declared, "It is done and continues to be done." How powerful is that? He died once, and the effects of his death continue. He had nothing more to finish by way of His death, and we reap the benefits of his finished work on the cross today.

In Ephesians 3:17, Paul describes how he prays for the believers at Ephesus. He notes that He prays that they may be able to grasp the incredible love of God based on their "being rooted and established in love." Both verbs "rooted" and "established" are in the perfect tense in the original Greek. Paul was saying "having been (and still are) rooted and having been (and still are) established" in love. When we accepted Christ as Savior we were completely rooted and established in his love - completed action in past time. Yet, we are still rooted and established in His love - continuing results.

In describing what it means to be rooted and established in God's love, Paul wants us to know nothing can change that status and that we will now and forever enjoy that privilege. It is what gives us the ability "to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ" (Ephesians 3:18). So be assured that God's saving love for you will never change. He grounded you deep in His love when He saved you from your sin!

As a follower of Christ, you have been (and still are) rooted and established in God's love forever!