For this reason I bow my knees before the Father… (Ephesians 3:14).
In Ephesians 3:14-19, Paul gives us four specific prayer requests he had for the people of God. And all of them center around the person and work of Jesus Christ: that Christ’s Spirit give you strength, as Christ lives in you by faith, giving you an ever-deepening, familiar knowledge of Christ-love, that you may enjoy the very best, the fullness, of what God has to offer: Jesus!
We come to know him, not like we know facts for a test, but like we know loved ones.
All this, Paul says, so that you and I will experience — along with every child of God — the infinite love of Christ that passes knowledge. The Christian gospel is not just a bunch of data from a textbook that you have memorized. It is centered around the person Jesus Christ and our relationship to him and with him. We come to know him, not like we know facts for a test, but like we know loved ones — intimately and affectionately.
We come to know the love that surpasses knowing!
Through the events of this life, by faith we come to know the breadth, the length, the depth, and the height of Christ-love — not plumbing its depths, but learning that it is bottomless; not reaching its heights, but realizing that it reaches to heaven; not exploring its breadth, but discovering that it is unsearchable; not traveling its length, but perceiving that it is eternal.
May we, by God’s grace, experience this fullness that is only found in Christ. May we come to know — personally and richly — the unknowable.