The Power of God’s Love
Several years ago, I came across a post that a teenage girl had written on social media where she said,
“My love life will never be satisfactory until someone runs through an airport to stop me from getting on a flight!”
And that would be a great feeling, wouldn’t it? I mean we’ve all seen movies where this kind of thing has happened, or we’ve seen the Friends episode of Ross is trying to tell Rachel how much he loves her and to not get on the plane. It’s moving. It tugs at our heart strings.
How incredible would it feel to know that someone loves you so much that they would run through an airport to stop you from getting on a flight?
We all long to be loved like this. Fully and completely loved. And it doesn’t even have to be romantic love. We want to be loved by our family, our friends, and even God too.
Love is powerful and a lot of times we’ll go to great lengths to get it.
We’ll try to make straight A’s, make the starting line up on a sport’s team, get into a great college, or get a great job all to impress our parents and hope that they will fully and completely love us.
We’ll change our personalities, dress a certain way, and even do ridiculous things to get our friends to notice us and want to be around us.
We’ll read our Bibles, go to church, serve others, give money, and do all kinds of religious things in hopes that God will truly love us and not be disappointed in us and our behaviors.
We all long to be fully and completely loved.
But the truth is that we already are fully and completely loved, and the apostle Paul teaches us through a prayer that he prays in Ephesians 3:14-21.
PAUL’S PRAYER FOR GOD’S LOVE
It’s my favorite prayer in all of the Bible, and in it we see the power of God’s love and how fully, completely, and unconditionally we are loved by Him.
Paul starts off and says this in Ephesians 3:14-15
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.
For what reason? Why is Paul about to pray for the Ephesians?
Well, what you need to know is that Paul has just taught them so much about their identity in the first 2 chapters. Paul just drops identity truth after identity truth about who they are now in Christ. He’s teaching them what is different about them now that they had placed their faith in Jesus for salvation.
Let me show give you some examples…
GOD’S LOVE GIVES US A NEW IDENTITY
In Ephesians 1:13-14, Paul says,
13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
So, at the moment of belief, something happened to you. The Spirit comes and dwells in you and unites to your spirit. This makes you a new creation, as Paul would show them in the 2nd chapter…
Ephesians 2:1,4-6 says
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ… 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.
You were dead, but now you are alive, and you are even already spiritually seated in heaven.
And so, being made alive and in a spiritual union with Christ, could allow Paul to say what he did in Ephesians 1:3…
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Eph. 1:3)
With this new identity, you are not lacking anything. You have every spiritual blessing that there is to have in Christ.
And Paul just goes on and on with identity statements like this throughout chapters 1 and 2, teaching them about how different they are. And as a result he could even say this in Ephesians 3:12…
12 In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
This new identity you receive allows you to be able to walk in a deep and intimate relationship with the Lord, and because of that it leads Paul to pray this prayer just a few verses later.
For that reason (because they are so different now through their union with Christ), Paul prays this for them, beginning in Ephesians 3:16
16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
Now wait, I thought Christ already dwelt in our hearts? I mean, Paul said In Ephesians 1:13 that the Holy Spirit was deposited in us? So why is he praying for Jesus to come dwell in us if He already dwells in us?
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INNER BEING & HEART
Well, that’s not really what he is praying here. See, Paul first prayed that we would be strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit in our inner being…
This is the place of our new birth, where our spirit is joined to Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
Our inner being is the very core of who we are in union with Christ. This is where our identity is formed by and through Christ.
And Paul prays that from that place we would be strengthened by God’s power so that Christ may dwell in our hearts.
The word for heart here is different than inner being.
It’s a reference to the center of the personality, your intellect, emotions, and will.
So, this is what we often talk about as our soul, as Paul mentions in 1 Thessalonians 5:23. We are made up of a spirit, soul, and a body. Our soul is made of our mind, emotions, and our will.
So what Paul is praying here is that we would actually begin to experience what is already true about us in Christ in our inner being. He is praying that we’ll be strengthened with power from there and begin to experience Christ throughout the rest of who we are.
But Paul isn’t done with his prayer. He has something very specific he wants us to experience as Christ works in us and through us, the power of God’s love.
ROOTED & ESTABLISHED IN GOD’S LOVE
Look at what he says in the rest of verse 17…
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love (Ephesians 3:17)
This is important. Paul writes this in what’s called the perfect tense which indicates a past action with continuing results.
So Paul is not praying that you will root yourself in God’s love. You have been rooted and established in love at a specific time in the past (at the moment of salvation) and it has lasting results.
So Paul says, “I pray that SINCE you’ve been rooted and established in love” as part of your new identity that you…
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—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:18-19)
EXPERIENCING GOD’S LOVE
So Paul says, “you are already rooted in this love,” but now I’m praying that you begin to experience His love. That you will begin to grasp His love for you.
There is a difference between knowing and grasping.
I’ll never forget the moment that I found out that I was going to be a dad.
I remember thinking so much and praying so much for our son. I was thinking about what it was going to be like when he was here, and what it was going to feel like being a dad.
And I knew that I would love him, but the moment I laid eyes on him I just lost it. I mean I made that hospital room look like Niagara Falls with my tears. They were tears of joy, of course, but there were a lot of them.
See, in that moment I was beginning to grasp how much I really loved him. It moved from knowing to grasping (experiencing).
Paul wants you to not just know that God loves you but to grasp that he loves you. To experience the power of God’s love in your life.
I referenced the teenage girl earlier who posted on social media that her love life wouldn’t be complete until someone ran through an airport to stop her from getting on an airplane.
Well, God didn’t run through an airport, but He did leave the glory and riches of heaven and travelled all the way here to earth and to a hill on calvary, where He died for you.
However amazing you think it would feel to have someone run through an airport to stop you from getting on a plane because they love you, begin to let it sink it how far Jesus ran to show you how much He loved you!
Grasp that, and it will change everything.
You are fully loved. You are completely loved. You are unconditionally loved.
And this love runs so high, so wide, so long, and so deep that you will never be able to outrun it yourself.
This is how fully & completely you are loved.
And at the heart of Paul’s prayer this is what he prays for you. He prays that you would grasp God’s and begin to experience it in your life.
Think of all the things Paul could pray for. For situations to get better, for circumstances to change. For more Bible reading, more prayers to be prayed, more money to give, or even to serve Him more.
But Paul says, the ONE THING YOU’VE GOT TO GET…the one thing I am praying for you is that YOU WILL GRASP HOW WIDE, LONG, HIGH, & DEEP GOD’S LOVE IS FOR YOU!
Why would Paul pray this? Why would this be the one thing he was asking Jesus to reveal to them?
THE POWER OF GOD’S LOVE
Being fully, completely, and unconditionally loved changes everything.
You can rest. You no longer have to try and prove yourself to him or anyone else.
Think of all of the things we do and how many of them are us grasping for love or to numb the feelings of being unloved. If we begin to grasp God’s love, it has the power to change everything in our lives.
Do you know how much you are loved? Have you begun to grasp how wide, long, high, and deep the love of God is for you? It’s my prayer, just like Paul’s that you would and that it would change everything for you.
