Our devotional in Paul’s prayers and prayer reports continues!
Ephesians 3:14-21 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Yesterday we looked at the prayer that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith. Paul goes on to pray that his readers would be rooted and established in love. Paul places two images side by side – the roots of a plant that go deep in the soil to make it stand, and the foundation of a building in the soil or on the rock that makes it stand. In both cases the soil and the rock is Christ’s love: his love for us is the soil in which we are planted, it is what holds us up.
Paul then goes on to pray that we would know the unknowable dimensions of that love. Maybe the picture is that of a young plant (or maybe an old gnarled plant for some of us) realizing that the soil in which it is planted is a whole world – of soil and nutrition and sustenance. So Paul prays that our hearts would know the love of Christ as longer than long, higher than high, deeper than deep, wider than wide, that we would know at a heart level what can never be grasped by the human mind. He prays that that knowledge would fill us fully – that the only thing there would be room for in our hearts and minds is the love of God.
Is that how you pray for yourself? Is that how you pray for others?
The Love of God! Read the Lyrics