20 October 2022

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
From Ephesians 3:14-21, NRSV

In this moving and tender prayer, the writer wants to convey the full extent of God’s love for people. It is worth remembering that the people to whom this letter was addressed had faced many trials and challenges on their faith journey. How welcome these words must have been for people who had faced so much difficulty. Some have interpreted the various dimensions of breadth, length, height, depth in this way. By the breadth of it we may understand the extent of God’s love to all peoples and nations; by the length of it, its continuance from everlasting to everlasting; by the depth of it, its reaching down to save those who have sunk into the depths of sin and misery; by its height, its entitling and raising us all up to the glory and joy of heaven. The prayer ends by making it clear that the purpose of enabling people to feel so full of God’s love is not just that they should feel satisfied but so that they in their turn will share this love with others.

• • Have you ever experienced the fullness of God’s love for you?
  • What kinds of things can prevent us from experiencing this love?

Find and pray the whole prayer from which today’s extract has been chosen.