From the Home Place

July 13, 2026

Greetings! We are enjoying a cloudy morning, with a cooler breeze blowing at 16-37 out of the SSE. The one part is that we are headed for 99 degrees, with 1% possibility of rain.

The Lord was kind to us in Guernsey yesterday. The young folks who lea music for us were a blessing; there were several visitors from around Guernsey, and we really enjoyed seeing friends from Lusk who were also in attendance.

For our lesson time, we looked at Ephesians 3:19b where the Apostle Paul prays for us that as followers of Jesus Christ, that we will know the “love and surpassing knowledge of Jesus, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

We used a balloon to represent us as individuals. As we gain knowledge about who Jesus is and what He has done on our behalf, that should not puff us up like a balloon but instead should bring about great humility within our soul. As Paul stated, we are to “be filled with all the fulness of God,” instead of gaining just more biblical information.

The book of Proverbs tells us that knowledge by itself just “puffs up.” Knowledge without proper application inflates our personal balloon, so that we tend to be quick to judge others instead of loving others. We American Christians are so focused upon gaining information that we seldom work on application of said information. Years ago, I heard a professor state that in his mind “wisdom is the proper application of information.”

So, to know the “love of Jesus that surpasses knowledge” is the proper application of that which we know of Jesus. Personally living what the life of Jesus Christ teaches us leads us toward the “fullness of God.” Here the word “fullness” is well understood as “being complete in God.” “Fullness” means lacking nothing.

Now I agree, none of us will ever achieve that level of completely knowing God while we live on this ‘ol ball of dirt, but we should always be reaching closer and closer to Christ-likeness as we “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18)

To use Scripture to push this idea forward, the more we learn of Jesus, the more like Jesus we should become and the more the Fruit of the Spirit should be evident within and through our lives: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

It seems to me that for many of us as Christians, the more information we gain, the less “patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” is revealed. Instead, we often live out Galatians 5:26 which is found in the next paragraph after the list from above: “We must not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”

Yes, we are to allow the Holy Spirit to breathe His air into our personal balloon, but then we are to quickly and appropriately apply that “knowledge.” For each of us, we are to “Humbles ourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you at the proper time.”(1 Peter 5:6) As such, may we each be careful not to “think more highly of” ourselves than we should, thus blowing our own air into our balloon, leading to conceit.

Conclusion, allowing the Holy Spirit to breathe His air into our balloon will be revealed in a life that lives the love of Jesus Christ! A life that reveals a portion of “the fulness of God.”

Placing myself under the “mighty hand of God” with you, Neal