TODAY’S READING: Ephesians 3:18-19
KEY VERSE:
“to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ”
EPH 3:18B (NIV)
I remember singing ‘Wide, Wide as the Ocean’ in Sunday School and we would stretch our arms wide. The boys, of course, used this as an opportunity to smack one another in the face. Then we would go up on our tiptoes and reach our arms up, to sing, ‘high as the heavens above’ before touching the floor for ‘deep, deep as the deepest sea, is my saviour’s love.’ Even as children we knew that we couldn’t reach wide, high or deep enough to express the dimensions of His love.
How beautiful! Paul’s prayer is that all believers grasp something that really cannot be grasped – the immeasurable, infinite love of Christ. I had a rich friend at school (her surname was actually triple-barrelled, that’s how posh they were!) who used to boast that it took her dad a whole day to walk round their property limits. That’s pretty big but we could walk for years and never reach the limits of Christ’s love!
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sn’t it interesting that Paul talks about four dimensions of Christ’s love – width, height, length and depth. 4D includes not only dimensions of volume, but also of time! Not only is Christ’s love immeasurable, it’s also eternal. God tells His people in Jeremiah 31:3, “I have loved you with an everlasting love”. His love will never ever run out. It will never run dry. We will never exhaust His love for us or reach the bottom of the barrel. What an amazing assurance! Are you feeling the love? If you are someone who struggles to believe that you are loved, take a moment to consider the limitless love of Christ. Pray like Paul, that you may be able to grasp how much you are loved today.
It gets better. Look at the last part of verse 19, “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God”. How incredible?! A God without limits, with a love so amazing that it cannot be measured, and yet Paul prays that we will be filled with all the fullness of Him!!! How can we possibly contain something so huge? The truth is, we aren’t supposed to contain it. This love is supposed to overflow out of us and flood the world around us so let’s thank Jesus for His amazing love. Consider how high, wide, deep and long it is and think of ways we can pour out His love to others today.
ACTION STEPS
• Read Ephesians 3:18-19
• Pray that you, and your brothers and sisters, can grasp this immeasurable, eternal love of Jesus.
• What can you do today to pour the love of Jesus into someone’s life?