In Day 2 of “Feeding Your Hunger,” you were introduced to this passage:
Ephesians 3:17-19
17 And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge…
At first glance, the point of this passage appears to be the enormity of the love of Christ: its width, its length, its height, its depth. This is beautiful, and needed, information. But, incredibly, it’s actually not the point of the verse. As you can tell, the verse is a prayer. Knowing the verse is a prayer, what is being prayed for in this passage? We’ll give you a minute to find that yourself before moving forward.
Ok. Got it? The Apostle Paul, the writer of the letter of Ephesians, prays that his readers may have power to grasp the enormity of the love of Christ. Paul is not simply describing the love of Christ. He is praying we will have power to grasp the enormity of the love of Christ.
Think of it this way: the love of Christ is so BIG (wide, long, high, deep) that we need a special force to help us grasp this big love! It’s a like structures such as big bridges (The Golden Gate Bridge) or skyscrapers (The Freedom Tower). These structures need massive foundations to be able to hold the big structure. Without a massive foundation, the structure would not be able to stand.
The same with the immense love of Christ. We need power to grasp it—to believe it, to understand it, to make it our own, to comprehend it (these words/phrases are all possible ways to translate the Greek word katalambanō, which the NIV translates as “grasp”). And here’s the thing: the love of Christ is unbelievable, it’s hard to understand, and it is incomprehensible. That’s why we need supernatural power, supplied by God, to believe it, understand it, and comprehend it. In a word, to “grasp” it. Without that power, our grasp of the love of Christ will not stand.
Here’s why this is important. There will be days when you will…
…be sad.
…be disappointed.
…be frustrated.
…make a mistake that makes you feel bad about yourself.
…feel you have failed.
…feel lonely.
…be hurt, maybe unintentionally, by a close friend.
…hurt, maybe unintentionally, a close friend.
…be tempted to do something wrong.
…feel bad for doing something wrong.
…be scared.
…be nervous.
…grieve.
It’s on these days when your comprehension of the love of Christ will keep you in contact with the love of Christ. This will preserve you. This will help you stand.
When we have those days, we need to…
- call to mind
- to remember
- to trust
- to know beyond a shadow of a doubt
- to be absolutely certain
…that the love of Christ is wide, is long, is high, and deep. We need to know that there is nowhere we can go that is outside of the reach of the love of Christ! There is nothing we can do that would cause Christ to not love us.
If we don’t have power to grasp that big love, we will forget it, we won’t trust it, we will be grasped by:
- our fears
- our hurts
- our regrets
- our own guilt
- our shame
- our doubts
But if we have a POWERFUL GRASP on the love of Jesus, we will be preserved, redeemed, and will be strong. And then, we will experience the final point in this prayer:
… that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.