“That Christ may dwell in Your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height.”
(Ephesians 3:17-18)
In Paul’s letter to the believers at Ephesus, he prays that Christ will be at home in their hearts and that the roots of their faith will grow down deep into God’s love. For he knows this is when they will come to fully experience the expansive power of His love in their lives.
This rooting and grounding is necessary because believers face violent temptations. A tree without deep roots cannot stand against strong winds, and a house without a sure foundation will fall. In the same way, the Christian cannot withstand the assaults of temptation by trusting in personal righteousness, natural courage, or fixed resolutions. The unchangeable and free love of God in Christ, received by faith, is the strong foundation upon which the believer must rest.
Yet faith must do more than hold the doctrine in our mind. It must embrace the love of God personally as it is offered in the gospel and necessary for life. Such faith gives stability because it secures the heart to what is itself immovable. The more firmly the believer is fastened to this love, the more able he is to endure temptation without being swept away.[1]
Paul also prays that believers may comprehend the greatness of this love in its breadth, length, depth, and height. Its breadth reaches across ages and ranks; its length extends from eternity to eternity; its depth stoops to sinners in the lowest misery; and its height raises them toward heavenly joy and blessedness. Giving such dimensions to His love allows us to consider something whose fullness exceeds our understanding.
The love of Christ is therefore both knowable and unknowable in different respects. It can truly be known from Scripture and from its saving effects in the believer, yet it cannot be fully comprehended because it is infinite. Believers may know enough to stand and wonder, enough to be comforted, enough to obey, and enough to be assured that still more remains beyond our understanding.
Our prayer should be not only to know that God loves us in Christ, but to be strengthened to understand that love more deeply, to rest in it more fully, to feel its effects more powerfully, and to draw from it greater comfort and obedience. The infinite nature of Christ’s love should only serve to make us more hungry to know what can be known and to marvel at what remains beyond our comprehension.
Contemplations:
- Root Me Where Temptation Cannot Tear Me Away. When I depend on my own strength, my courage, resolution, and obedience fail. Keep me steadfastly anchored in the unchangeable love in Christ. Let faith take such hold of that love that temptation cannot move me.
- Keep Me from Knowing Your Love Only in my Mind. I do not want to only know about Your love; I want to experience it. Sink my understanding deep into my heart. Let me lay hold of it as it is offered in the gospel, knowing it is necessary for my stability. Make the reality of Your love something I rest in when I feel fearful, unheard, troubled, and tempted to doubt.
- Enlarge My Thoughts of What Cannot Be Exhausted. Teach me to pause often to consider the breadth, length, depth, and height of Your love. Help me see how far it reaches, how long it endures, how low it stoops, and how high it carries Your people. When I think I understand it, remind me that more remains. Make wonder grow together with knowledge.
- Let Deeper Love Produce Deeper Obedience. Your love is not given to simply comfort me. It should also constrain me to duty. Let a fuller apprehension of Christ’s love make my obedience more willing and my faith more steady. And cause the love I receive to become a stronger motive to please You, follow You, and remain faithful under trial.
Prayer (Supplication):
Father, strengthen me by Your Spirit to know more fully the love You have revealed in Jesus Christ.
Root me and ground me in that love. Do not let me rest in my own righteousness, natural courage, determination, or experience. Those foundations are too weak. Fasten my heart to the free and unchangeable love of God in Christ as to a rock that cannot move.
Give me more than a nominal understanding. Let me know this love experientially. Help me lay hold of it by faith with seriousness and confidence. When temptation comes, let the assurance of Your love steady me. When fears rise, let Your love answer them. When my conscience is troubled, let the gospel become a firm foundation beneath me.
Enlarge my apprehension of the breadth, length, depth, and height of Christ’s love. Show me how it reaches beyond my narrow thoughts, how it extends from eternity to eternity, how it stoops to sinners in deep misery, and how it lifts them toward heavenly joy.
Cause me to hunger for a fuller knowledge of what still passes knowledge. And let what I know bear the fruit of peace, obedience, humility, and perseverance.
Root me deeply, establish me firmly, and enlarge my heart to know more of the love of Christ.
In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Further Scripture References:
Rom. 11:36; Col. 2:7; John 14:23; Gal. 5:6
[1] James Fergusson, A Brief Exposition of the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, (London: Printed for the Company of Stationers, 1659), 207-212.
