The Total Love of God

Paul invites us to hear a prayer for the church, asking God to help us comprehend the totality of His love with all the saints so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.

The greatest experience in one’s life is to know God’s love, the totality of it. Once we enter that love relationship through faith in Jesus Christ, we experience a pure love that has been sealed by God’s promise never to leave us, no matter what.

Paul prays earnestly that his readers may be strengthened in their faith. He asks that Jesus Christ make his home and establish his throne in their hearts. He asks that they may realize the vastness of God’s love—reaching the most despicable sinner and reconciling the most hostile enemies. He prays that they may be filled with God himself—to become perfect as God is perfect.

Paul’s prayer is a prayer that should be offered by all pastors who love their people. Paul hopes that Christ will take over the church in Ephesus. This is not a matter of becoming stronger in themselves but having Christ dwell in their hearts.

The issue is letting Christ in to change us. Having Christ dwell in our hearts is like having a new person move into your household. It is relatively easy if they’re visiting; you simply offer hospitality and try to practice good manners. But if someone moves in to stay, everything changes.

At first, you might try to hold on to your familiar patterns and routines, and the new member may work hard to accommodate you and stay out of the way.

But eventually, they make their mark. Conversations change. Relationships realign. Household tasks increase, and responsibilities shift. So, it is when Christ moves into your hearts. This isn’t merely tweaking old patterns; everything changes.

Sometimes, when we entertain guests, they are only allowed to stay in the living room or the kitchen.

Even when we let someone spend a night or two, you try your best to accommodate them, but not many will offer up the master bedroom for the guests to sleep in. But that’s the thing with Christ. When we invite him into our hearts, he doesn’t want to stand in the home's foyer; he wants to be welcomed into the house.

Paul’s prayer is full of hope for something different: for Christ to take over these people and strengthen them with God’s Spirit. His prayer is for both power and love: the power to comprehend the depth and breadth of Christ’s love and be filled with God's fullness.

No words in Webster’s Dictionary truly describe God’s love for us. Yes, we can sing, “Jesus loves me because the Bible tells me so,” but those simple words are simply the beginning of comprehending God’s love.

Let's examine God's total love using the four terms Paul gives us.

First, the breadth of God’s love describes its all-encompassing nature.

God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness are broad enough for all. If the church in Ephesus could grasp the breadth of God’s love in Christ, it would see the world differently. The church would have united as a single family, and from their unity, it could show the love of Christ to the entire city.

Secondly, the length of God’s love refers to His limitless reach.

Is someone too far for God to reach? Is someone too evil, too hardened, too unworthy? No, because the length of God’s love reaches as far as the ends of the earth and into the hardest of hearts.

No matter how completely our sin may consume us or how discouraged we may become in our walk, God’s love reaches further, and His forgiveness never runs out. His grace is sufficient!

If the church in Ephesus could comprehend the length of God’s love, they would have seen the unsaved in Ephesus with more compassion. They might have taken their commission as ambassadors for Christ more seriously.

They would recognize that there are only two kinds of people in the world: those who belong to Christ and those who don’t (yet). Even after they forgot their first love and drifted away, God’s love might have drawn them back.

Thirdly, the height of God’s love refers to its inexhaustible and triumphant supply.

God’s love keeps piling up, and it’s always sufficient to address our deepest emotional needs, satisfying us in ways the world can’t. In its immaturity, the church in Ephesus had turned to looking for love in all the wrong places. They valued good teaching but also seemed to value the world’s attention, rewards, and pleasures. But the things the world offers aren’t satisfying, and they certainly can‘t meet our longing for contentment.

Certainly, life won’t become perfect, and we still experience disappointments and tragedies, but the height of God’s love leaves us satisfied in Christ all the more when the world lets us down.

When you have anchored your satisfaction in life in the love of Christ for you and His riches reserved in eternity, then you aren’t rocked by life’s disappointments. You see those afflictions as momentary and light because the love of God given to you in Christ towers above them all.

Finally, Paul prays we would know the depth of God’s love, which refers to His unlimited mercy and supply.

God’s power to bring us joy far surpasses the degree of sorrow the world can inflict. Believers walking in spiritual strength rooted in God’s love still face difficulties in life, but by God’s love, we can face them with a resilience the world can’t understand.

We still have feelings…we still feel pain, anger, or resentment, at least for a moment—but the depths of Christ’s love bring a new, mature perspective to those circumstances. The church in Ephesus dearly needed to appreciate the depths of God’s love because the things they were chasing were going to lead to ruin.

If they could set a foundation of Christ’s love, nothing could shake them. Their joy wouldn’t depend on economic trends or commercial success. They might know the fullness of God. So, Paul ends his prayer by asking God for that outcome.

Some of you may doubt that such a life of contentment is possible for you. If so, then you haven’t fully heard that God’s love is limitless—God’s love is total!

God’s love is total, says Paul. It reaches every corner of our experience. It is wide—it covers the breadth of our knowledge and reaches out to the whole world. God’s love is long—it continues the length of our lives. It is high—it rises to the heights of our celebration and joy. His love is deep—it reaches the depths of discouragement, despair, and even death. When you feel shut out or isolated, remember that you can never be lost to God’s love.

God can do things you can’t even imagine. Place your faith in Him, and He will never fail you! To God be the glory.

Let us pray that God will grant us the grace and wisdom to comprehend the breadth, length, height, and depth of His love and that we may be filled with His fullness. Amen.