Ephesians 3:17, 18


So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 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 ~ Ephesians 3:17, 18

Paul is speaking not only to individuals, but to the church at Ephesus, calling them to be a body and a home in which the Spirit of God may dwell. He is plain in that there can be no indwelling without Christ, and no indwelling of Christ unless by faith. So, he prays that they might have that faith in Christ. This is how we remain in His love and presence. There must be a foundation which is strong and sure. Paul’s metaphor of being rooted leads one to look to nature, to the trees. Their roots run deep into the ground; this is how they grow. We are to be rooted in the love of Christ; this is how we grow into the likeness of Jesus and then are filled with His goodness. Remember the words of John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son…” The foundation of Christ’s love cannot be shaken! It is from this that we reach in hope and expectation not only for God, but to our fellow human being. It is through this love, Paul says, that we are not just able, but “thoroughly able” to comprehend this mystery of God. The love of God is described as a though it is a ground plan for a building – high, deep, long, and wide. There are measurements for sure, but the measurements are beyond our imagination! God is love, that is it! God’s love is to “infinity and beyond”. It is all that is above, below, around us. It is what was past and what is to come. It circles the globe in which we live, and every person within that sphere. His love reaches into the deepest darkness of our heart to the throne of Christ. It is this love which raised our souls to heaven as we believe in Jesus Christ. May Christ richly dwell in your heart.

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