Ephesians 4:15

"Rather, let our lives lovingly express truth [in all things, speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly]. Enfolded in love, let us grow up in every way and in all things into Him Who is the Head, [even] Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One)." Ephesians 4:15

Sometimes, I remind my children when I see them telling their children to "not do that... whatever it might be", that they need to tell them, also, "what they should do, instead!" Often, they just don't know what to do. Our Father in heaven is even better at that than we are. He always shows us in His Word what we should and should not do. He has had Paul talking about us "growing up"... becoming Spiritually Mature, and so now He reveals to Paul (and now you and I) what Spiritual Maturity should look like. He says, "let our lives lovingly express truth." You have met people who love to tell the truth... but it hurt your feelings. Some truths do hurt, but the difference is in the heart of the one telling the truth. Paul says that we are to lovingly express the truth. The Amplified adds, "in all things, speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly", because telling the truth, yet living a lie, is just a lie. I mean, I can't truly love you by sharing with you what God says to do, and then live another way. In truth, we rarely even need to speak for other people to know what we believe to be the truth. They can see what we believe by the way we live.

Then Paul continues ... "Enfolded in love, let us grow up in every way and in all things into Him Who is the Head, [even] Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One". This is an amazing Word... and what an opportunity for Paul to insert what many people would think more important than LOVE as a resource for spiritual growth! I can hear the Fair-ya-say's and the Sad-you-see's now, saying, "what about obeying the 10 commandments"... "what about, growing though service to God"... and, "why not through worship"? These ARE very important... but Paul is NOT FREE to insert these things here in this verse... or any other verse. God is telling us that Enfolded in Love, is how we are to grow!

This word enfolded is used to describe what is done to metal when making some of the greatest swords ever known! It is a process of heating metal to very high temperatures and smashing out the metal and then FOLDING it back onto itself, only to repeat over and over until it is refined to the purest form. The metal is so strong and able to withstand the greatest stress in battle. Love MUST BE WORKED OUT! That means you and I must stop resisting it's expression! The Holy Spirit reaches out in love, but we don't like the way that person looks, so we resist. The Spirit says tell them you love them, but we are afraid, and resist. LOVE doesn't get enfolded. We want to BE loved, but love wants to come OUT... God wants to love through us and He knows full well it will hurt sometimes, but we are not willing to go through the "ENFOLDING". And so, we go through it our way, trying to appease God in every possible way except LOVE. Go back to the first three lines of I Cor 13 to see what it says about those other things. We better move on, but I pray you will stay here and pray and meditate with The Lord on this passage, if you disagree with this interpretation.

Let's pick up with Ephesians verse 4:16 next time.

I love you.