Incomprehensible Love – Ephesians 3:14-21
Loving those who reciprocate love is an entirely comprehensible concept, even though at times we even struggle to love those who love us. In contrast, God’s love is something quite extraordinary- it is seemingly irrational and incomprehensible, as God loved us even while we reviled and rejected Him.
The Apostle Paul reminds us that it is only by God’s power that can we possibly comprehend God’s love – to grasp the dimensions of something beyond measurement, to know something beyond knowing. Paul knows that God’s love is boundless, endless, fathomless, measureless. It encompasses the universe and time and eternity. It reaches to the depths of sin and disgrace, and to the heights of the throne and infinity. It passes all knowledge and wisdom.
Paul realises that without God’s Spirit we cannot fathom the dimensions of His love. So, Paul prays four big things. Each of them builds on its predecessor, with the intention being that Christians begin to understand God’s love more, and thence might become more like Him.
Firstly, Paul prays that God “out of His glorious riches would strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
Secondly, “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. … being rooted and established in love,”
Thirdly that all Christians would,
“have power … to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,”
And fourthly that we may “know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3:16-19)
Paul shows us how the core of all these steps is God’s love. Then, once we begin to understand the dimensions of this seemingly incomprehensible love we need to consider the implications in our lives.
How does God’s love play out in our current context?
As Christians, what is the most loving approach we can take when we see a Christian brother or sister on a trajectory of sin?
The Apostle Paul reminds Christians that an appropriate response is to pray, to our
God “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us”.
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