Ephesians 3:17-19

17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 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.

Paul’s prayer for us reveals the wellspring from which the power and the glory of God rise up and become a reality in our lives.  Paul prays that we would grasp hold of something that would pave the way for God’s work in us. What is this amazing something Paul prays that we would get hold of? Three simple words “God loves you.” Some of us may respond “that’s it?” I already get that, some of us may be disappointed, we were hoping for something new and different. After all, how many times do we need to hear “God loves you”? For some, hearing those words may touch you about as deeply as having someone say “God bless you” when you sneeze. So why is it that when Paul talks about knowing that God loves him he is so excited and can hardly contain himself, but when we hear about it, we’re more tempted to yawn than to dance? Is it possible that we don’t really get it? We know it, but we don’t get it. Paul is not praying that God’s people would know that God loves them, but that they would know God’s love. Did you hear the difference? Do you know God’s love, or do you only know that God loves you? As a Biology major I know that the molecular structure of water is a combination of 2 molecules of Hydrogen & 1 molecule of Oxygen. Yet what does that really do for me on a blazing hot summer afternoon when my throat is so parched I can’t even swallow? When I need a drink I could care less about H2O as a chemical formula because my understanding of water doesn’t quench my thirst. My need is not for deeper insights into the meaning of water, I don’t need more knowledge about water, what I need is water, a tall, deep glass of ice cold water. It’s the same with God’s love, if you know that God loves you, but you don’t know His Love, it’s like studying water without drinking it.

In Paul’s desire for us to understand God’s love he exposes us to the four dimensions, width, length height and depth that open the door to the vastness and completeness of God’s love. He prays that we would “understand” how wide, long, high, and deep his love is but the word “understand” as it’s used here doesn’t mean “to gain a mental concept.” It means to grasp hold of. Paul ultimately wants us to get it, not just to consider it in our minds but to let it penetrate our hearts even though he acknowledges that we will never be fully capable.

• The width.

How wide is God’s love?  The width of God’s love is the most obvious dimension that distinguishes His love from human love because He loves everyone and He loves them all equally. 2 Peter 3:9 tells us that He desires that all come to know Him, He doesn’t play favorites. (2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.”)

The human race on the other hand often reveals the extent of its love by the harsh treatment of those from other races and socio-economic backgrounds. The truth is that we love certain people but not others and while Christ was saying ‘love your neighbor,’ we were ask in our prejudice, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ Jesus responded by pointing to the Samaritan, who was to the Jew someone they hated and who was not worthy of respect and for the Samaritan the feelings were mutual. Jesus tells us to love even those who hate us, that is what Christ did on the cross, He died because God loves sinners. Sinners like me, like you, like homosexuals, and abortion doctors. God hates those behaviors, as he often hates my behavior and your behavior, but His love is so wide, that it still encompasses them. God longs to set us free from sinful behavior and make us like Christ. He longs for all to experience His love, He is not exclusive and neither should we be, God loves you despite you and we must do the same for others.

• The length.

What is the length of His love? From eternity to eternity, Romans 8:38 tells us that neither the present nor the future can separate us from God’s love. I don’t have to worry about His love running out because God’s love is forever and always. It isn’t just available on Sundays, there are no “regular business hours” for God’s love and the love of God doesn’t take holidays. It also means that God’s love doesn’t give up where ours often does. We tend to offer people love with a certain amount of time to respond and if they don’t we say forget it! Jesus said, “I will never, ever, ever leave you or forsake you.” He is the same today, yesterday and forever, He doesn’t change and His love for us doesn’t change so He doesn’t give up on us. There are those who wonder “will He love me today?” what about tomorrow? There are some who say “I believe He used to love me, but what about now?” Through the prophet Jeremiah God told the nation of Israel: “I have loved you with an everlasting love” – Jeremiah 31:3

We talk about “clinging to the Lord,” in times of trial, but it really is the other way around. It is the Lord Jesus who hangs on to us. How long will He love you? Its forever!

Romans 13:8-10

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

What should be a Christian’s attitude toward others? Romans 13:8 says it should be Love. The initial statement is a continuation of the responsibility of Christians to pay their debts. Our debts show up regularly in the form of bill, you pay them, but like weeds, they just keep coming back.  There is the electric, gas and water bill, the fuel bill, mortgage payments, insurance bills, credit card bills, car payments, on and on. When we don’t pay our bills the mountain of debt piles up and we can get buried, not knowing which ones to pay first. The issue of handling money is more than a financial issue it is a spiritual and moral one because its use or misuse affects others. Paul tells us that we must do what we can to be out of debt but there is one debt which will always remain due. It is a debt we can never pay off, our obligation to love others, it is a debt that will owe until the day we die. While we live, we get to pay this debt as often as possible, as much as possible, and to as many as possible. Paul calls us to live within our means without being mean by reminding us of the:

• Debt of Love

When you look at your bills it is a reminder of what you owe and Paul reminds us that we owe love, it is our primary debt. There is something in every one of us that wants to diminish this requirement either by saying I have done enough or by limiting who we do it for. Yet Jesus taught in Luke 10:25-37 that our neighbor includes the person that God places in our path that has a need that they are not capable of handling. So there is no limit to who we should love and on the amount we love we can never say “I have loved enough”. With love we will never get to the point where we have sacrificed enough, given enough of our time, energy, money, and efforts, been kind enough or even patient enough. No matter how loving we may have been in the past, we’re still indebted to love. We can never repay the love Christ showed us on the cross of Calvary but we can love in all of our relationships.

• Discharge of Love

Paul says loving others is about what we do or do not do, not with how we feel, there is an important message here; loving others is a matter of action, not emotion. Loving others does not mean that we will always like others but that we will show them love in what we do and do not do. Paul is talking about agape love, unconditional love that is a choice to behave in a certain way, not necessarily because of feelings, but simply because it is right. Paul says that love fulfills the law and several specific commands from the Old Testament are quoted to substantiate this fact. The first four are from the Ten Commandments (Exodus. 20:13-15, 17) while the fifth is from the sacrificial law (Leviticus 19:18).

Loving another means not commit adultery because such sinful defilement of a person shows disregard for another’s purity. Love highly values the virtue of others and will do nothing that is morally defiling. The same principle applies just as obviously to the person who would commit murder or who would steal. Love does not rob others of their life, their reputation, or their property. Coveting is an envious desire to possess what belongs to another and does not always have an outward manifestation, when we covet, sometimes God may be the only one, besides ourselves, who is aware of that sin. Love does not covet but instead is grateful for the gifts, abilities, talents, and blessings that others possess. Love has no part in any unrighteousness and there is something about doing the law of love that empowers us to live out a holy life while keeping us from focusing on the negative. God asks us to concentrate on the positive of loving our neighbor which fulfills the law rather than on the prohibitions or the negative events which break the law. Are the “do not’s” that break the law your focus or is it on fulfilling the obligations of love?

The expression, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” merits an observation. It is easy to get the idea that self-love is wrong, but if this were the case it would be pointless to love our neighbors as ourselves. Even for those who have low self-esteem, they don’t willingly let themselves go hungry. They clothe themselves reasonably well and make sure there’s a roof over their heads. They try not to let themselves be cheated or injured and would even step up if someone tried to ruin their marriage. Paul is saying this is the kind of love we need to have for our neighbors. Do we see that our neighbors are adequately fed, clothed, and housed? Loving others as ourselves means to be actively working to see that other people’s needs are met, not just our own. It is also important to note that people who focus on others rather than on themselves rarely suffer from low self-esteem!

• Design of Love

The major point of the paragraph is then repeated in the last part of verse 10. “Therefore love is the fulfillment of the Law. When we see someone we owe money to, what dominates our thoughts? “I owe them money.” What if the same though came to mind when we met others “I owe him or her love.” Often this is not our thought pattern because we are either focused on ourselves or why that person doesn’t deserve love. Yet the truth is that Jesus paid our sin debt because we were flat broke and couldn’t. We have been loved so much by God that our lives should be an overflowing of our experience with Him. When we love others we do not have to fear becoming empty ourselves because we are loving them through the overflow of the cross. As we extend God’s love to others we not only make them the focus, we tell them that they are important. As we establish their dignity and importance we make them bigger. God’s design is for us to love one another, it is the basic principle of the Christian life. Who is God calling you to love, have you made that love payment recently?