Weeding out an old notebook to throw away, I came across some notes from an old summer Bible conference study given by a preacher I like near Detroit, Tom Bruscha. He made this great point, which I obviously found worthy of writing down:

“Do you realize most of Christendom is spending all their Christian life trying to get ‘rooted and grounded in the love of God’? (Eph. 3:17) You find in the Crosswork of Christ the love of God. You can study that and see how, when you understand it, you ARE rooted and grounded in love, and after that—now you’re on the mountain peak, looking out, comprehending what God is doing.

“But if you spend all your time trying to figure out, ‘Am I really saved? Am I really forgiven?’ you’re spending all your time trying to GET rooted and grounded, and you’re NEVER going to be ‘filled with all the fullness of God.’ (Eph. 3:19)

“But once you get all of that done—and it’s easy to see; just study and see what God’s love has done for you and how God IS part of your life and what God is going to do in you—then that is you BEING rooted and grounded. Paul’s writing as if you can ALREADY be rooted and built up! Colossians says the same thing.”

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Fitting in with this notion of being “filled with the fullness of God” is this passage from an old Jordan study I have on tape:

“When God says to Israel, ‘I will make of thee a great nation,’ that doesn’t mean they’re to have the most people in the earth. It isn’t just to be numerous; it’s to be great in the Deuteronomy 4 sense of, ‘What nation is it so great that hath God so nigh unto them?’

“It’s greatness in having an identity as being ‘God’s people’; having Him as their God and them being His people. Sonship status. You know where He says, ‘They shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them’? That isn’t the idea that they’re all just going be saved. That is there.

“But you know God told Israel in Jeremiah, ‘When a man boast, let him boast about this . . .’ Do you remember what he’s supposed to boast about? ‘That you know me and you understand me.’ You see, to know the Lord in that context, and understand Him, is to be able to understand His thinking.

“It’s entering into an intimacy of fellowship with God where you know what He’s doing, and He knows you know, and you all do it together and you’re in the know with one another.

“You know how wonderful it is to be in-the-know? There’s a wonderful intimacy with this adoption; this Sonship status we have in the fullness of all God has given us to understand.

“You see, Israel is designed to have that kind of intimacy with God; that thing where He writes His law in their hearts. That’s not just to keep them from spitting on the sidewalk or cussing when they get their finger busted. That’s so there can be some intimacy of fellowship between Him and them.

“He’s their God, they’re His people, and they work together in harmony and joy, and there’s an excitement of them working together with God. When I look at that, to me that’s the most exciting thing in all the world.

“That’s why God put Adam on the earth to start with! He was supposed to know God, know what He was thinking, know what He was doing, and then work together with Him. God gave Eve to Adam as a ‘help meet’ for him—somebody to work with him in harmony and fellowship and intimacy to accomplish the purpose together—and God created man for that purpose for Him.

“What a wonderful thing it is for us—a bunch of no-good, rotten, useless, worn-out Gentiles—idol-worshipping, heathen idiots like you and I—we get to be a part of that too! And then He takes us and tells us stuff He never told Israel about! He says to us, ‘Let me show you my genius,’ and we go around and moan, ‘Oh, is this going to get over soon—Magnum P.I.’s on.’ ”