Eph 3:14-19, When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, {15} the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. {16} I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. {17} And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. {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 really is. {19} May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
The Scripture records that "God is love" so it takes the power of God to understand His width, length, depth, and height.
Width
Sometimes when we survey the panorama of life, we only count God in a portion of what we see. Maybe we see Him in the churches or the "religious" places but not in places like politics or schools or jails etc. The Bible teaches God is everywhere.
Psa 139:1-16, O LORD, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. {2} You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my every thought when far away. {3} You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am. {4} You know what I am going to say even before I say it, LORD. {5} You both precede and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. {6} Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to know! {7} I can never escape from your spirit! I can never get away from your presence! {8} If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there. {9} If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, {10} even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me. {11} I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night-- {12} but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are both alike to you. {13} You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. {14} Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—and how well I know it. {15} You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. {16} You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
To God's people, it is comfort to know He is always there. To the sinner, it is viewed as a curse.
Length (Time)
Rev 1:8, "I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end," says the Lord God. "I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come, the Almighty One."
He was in the beginning.
He created everything
He died for us when we were still in our sins
He was the first born from the dead
He will be the end.
Every knee will bow to Him
He will be the light of that city
Depth
The Lord wants to go to the depths of our lives. He is concerned most with the deepest part of man – the heart.
1 Sam 16:7, But the LORD said to Samuel, "Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t make decisions the way you do! People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at a person’s thoughts and intentions."
If your thoughts and intentions are right - actions will follow. The Lord does not want us just to think right thoughts, but to do right things.
James 1:22, And remember, it is a message to obey, not just to listen to. If you don’t obey, you are only fooling yourself.
Doctrine is only a superficial thing. Doing God's will is part of the deeper things. It is the real "meat."
1 Cor 3:1-3, Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to mature Christians. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in the Christian life. {2} I had to feed you with milk and not with solid food, because you couldn’t handle anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready, {3} for you are still controlled by your own sinful desires. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your own desires? You are acting like people who don’t belong to the Lord.
Heb 5:11-14, There is so much more we would like to say about this. But you don’t seem to listen, so it’s hard to make you understand. {12} You have been Christians a long time now, and you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things a beginner must learn about the Scriptures. You are like babies who drink only milk and cannot eat solid food. {13} And a person who is living on milk isn’t very far along in the Christian life and doesn’t know much about doing what is right. {14} Solid food is for those who are mature, who have trained themselves to recognize the difference between right and wrong and then do what is right.
For a deeper walk with the Lord - you have to walk! It is not enough to sit and think. As we walk with the Lord our ideas and beliefs are refined and we learn what really works and what doesn't.
We learn the difference between right and wrong. We may have thought we knew before, but we don't really know until we put our ideas into practice.
Height
As we go deeper with the Lord, our eyes have to keep looking up. Our final destination is not down, but up. While we are to go to the gutters to help others, our destination (and theirs) is a better place.
Col 3:1-4, Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor and power. {2} Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth. {3} For you died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. {4} And when Christ, who is your real life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.
Many people think they can achieve their goals only by concentrating their time and energy on them at the sacrifice of spending them on things of God. But our plans that do not include the Lord are, at the best, only good for this world. The only things we do that have any real lasting value are the things we do in agreement with the will of God.
Things in this life can seem so big at times, but the only really big things have to include God.
How can anything last longer than He who is the beginning and the end?
How can it have a larger physical presence than He who is everywhere?
How can any goal be higher than that eternal city not made with hands?
How can anything involve more total dedication than He who lives in the heart and always inspires action?
Col 3:17, And whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus, all the while giving thanks through him to God the Father.
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