Do We Know Love?
The Word of God is alive and well. It is active and effective, slicing deftly through soul and spirit. Accurately discerning the intentions of our hearts. I love how it catches me off guard, illuminating yet another grain of truth contained within familiar verses. This happened to me recently as I read through Ephesians 3:14-19…
For this reason I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Aside from the sheer beauty of these words, I noticed a shift in my understanding of what ‘surpasses knowledge’ means. I had always assumed this phrase meant the love of Christ could never be fully known or attained to. That its infinite nature was beyond human comprehension. There is truth to this.
But also, I suddenly understood that Christ’s love could be known. Love Himself wants to be known. Through His word there is an invitation to comprehend with all the saints the length, width, height and depth of His love. This is not an isolated pursuit, it is designed to be achieved in unity with other believers.
But more than this, Christ’s love is greater than knowledge itself. It is the highest form of knowledge. To know the love of Christ is to know the root of everything that is good. It is the only way to be completely filled with all the fullness of God. To grow in the grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour is to be rooted and grounded in the knowledge of His love.
Knowledge for the sake of knowledge inflates the ego, but the knowledge of His love humbles us as we understand the basis for our own salvation- not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to atone for our sin. What is the pursuit of knowledge without knowing His love? It is meaningless, chasing after the wind.
The notion of love in today’s world is but a shadow of its former self. This version of love is weak and insipid, it is fragile and fallible. It bears no resemblance to the love of God.
His love is neither finite nor fragile. It does not ‘fall in’ or ‘fall out’ with the ebb and flow of life. It is stronger than our will and our mind. A flood of evil cannot quench it. The love of Christ is what will be left standing when all other worldly pursuits have crumbled to dust.
For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion, that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised. ( 2 Corinthians 5:14 CSB).
It is the love of Christ that compels the missionary to reach those in the darkest of places. They are no longer living for themselves but for Christ whose love for them compelled Him to go to the cross.
It is the love of Christ that sustains the tortured, weary and broken but not despondent believer in the hiddenness of the persecuted church.
It is the love of Christ which holds a husband and wife together for life in joyful union, two flawed human beings becoming one flesh. His love working within them, covering a multitude of sins.
I imagine the Apostle Peter’s worst fears were confirmed when the risen Christ asked Him 3 times if he loved Him. Maybe flashbacks of his public denials of Christ came to mind. Maybe his heart sank pitifully in dejection. Even so, his answer rang out loud and clear “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” ( John 21:17 CSB).
It is upon this rock Christ will build His church. The love of Christ and our response of love to Him ( in all its weakness) will build the body of Christ.
“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35 CSB).
Love is what set the Gospel in motion. God so loved the world that He gave. Christ came because of love. The love of God compelled Him to save us from ourselves.
For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. ( John 3:16 CSB).
Do we know and rely on the love Christ has for us? Do we desire to live in the better way the Apostle Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 13?
Are we growing in the knowledge of the love that is patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not arrogant, not rude?
Do we comprehend the love that is not self-seeking, not irritable, that keeps no record of wrongs?
Does our love rejoice with the truth and despise unrighteousness?
The love of Christ will keep us until the end, when the love of all others has grown cold.
Knowing His love will cause us to stand, having done all to stand. Whoever lives in love, lives in God, and God in them.
God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgement, because as he is, so also are we in this world. (1 John 4:16-17 CSB)
As we grow in knowledge, may we seek the highest form of knowledge that exists. May we come to know and believe the love that God has for us.