Ephesians 3:19 (NLT)
May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
My pastor, Scott Luck, believes that Ephesians 3:14-19 is one of the greatest prayers of the Bible. It is Paul’s prayer for all Christians. In verse 17 he prays that “Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you, being rooted and grounded in love……..” and then specifically prays that all Christians experience or know the love of Christ. Giving Jesus unrestricted access to your heart and soul enables you to be rooted and grounded in His love. W. Graham Scroogie said that “love is the soil in which our life must have its roots and it is the rock upon which our faith must ever rest”.
The key word in verse 19 is “experience” (Greek ‘ginosko’) that means “to learn to know, to know by experience”. As someone said appropriately, to know fully the love of Christ is like an ocean without shores, no one can ever understand such love fully. While an endless pursuit, Paul still prays that Christians learn to know by experience Christ’s love little by little, day by day.
How do you experience the love of Christ? First, keep in mind that verse 19 follows preceding verses of Paul’s prayer where he asks God---
§ To grant each believer to be strengthened with power with that power coming from the Holy Spirit who resides in the life of each believer.
§ To have the Lord Jesus Christ to reside in the heart of each believer (with His residence in your life possible through faith).
§ To have each believer rooted and grounded in love.
§ To enable each believer to comprehend all the dimensions of Christ’s love:
o Breadth—the great width of God’s love for the world, desiring to save all people, Jews and Gentiles (John 3:16, Eph 2:11-18)
o Length—the eternity of God’s love (I Cor 13:8, Eph 1:4)
o Height—God’s love reaching the heavens (I John 3:1-2, Eph 2:6)
o Depth—God’s love regardless of the world’s sin (Phil 2:8, Eph 2:1-3)
The believer is able to experience the love of God because of all these truths. The believer has so much armor (the Holy Spirit, power, faith, love and all its dimensions) to experience the love of God although never the full measure of God’s love. Here are some practical ways that you can experience God’s love:
§ The sense of relief after praying for something or someone and knowing that God hears your prayers.
§ Confessing your sins and feeling free from the power of sin over you.
§ How good you feel when you do something nice for another person.
§ Asking for certain qualities (e.g. patience, forgiveness, joy, peace, etc) and subsequently experiencing/practicing these that otherwise would not happen.
§ Sincerely having love for another person that without God’s presence in your life, you know that such love would not be possible.
§ The deeper love that you have and show for your loved ones and closest friends
§ Sacrificial love that you know would not occur were God not involved.
There are many other ways that you can experience the love of God, that you can truly know the love of God. Such knowledge by experience will enable you to keeping growing as a Christian saint and be filled completely with all the fullness of God.
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