I've been pondering Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3. Of course it makes sense that Paul would want his beloved brothers and sisters in Christ to know the love of God. After all, Paul himself declared that everything he once considered to have value was disgustingly worthless compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ.
Paul's prayer is a wonderful example of what we should be praying for ourselves, our loved ones, and the world. That much is clear. But what I struggled to understand is this, "that...he may grant you to be strengthened with power...that you...may have strength to comprehend...and to know the love of Christ..." What exactly is the connection between strength & power and knowing love? The two seem to be completely unrelated.
First of all, why would it take strength to know something? Knowledge is the realm of the intellect and experience. You don't have to be strong to know something. You might need wisdom, experience, understanding, or some other such qualities, but not usually strength.
Secondly, why would strength be needed to know love. Even when love is strong, I wouldn't think you would need to be strong to receive it. Normally I would expect love to be strong on behalf of the recipient. I certainly wouldn't expect love to come in a form that demanded strength to receive it.
Even as I write this, I am conscious of the notion that you might have a dozen examples of when love would require a strong reception. But while my mind seems to be on the verge of getting there, I cannot make the leap.
Until, like that frisbee that kept growing larger, it hit me.
I was talking with a friend who was sharing some of his struggles and frustrations with his marriage (don't worry, you don't know them), and I kept thinking about his responsibility in the relationship. What is a husband's duty? To love his wife as Christ loves the Church. This is not to diminish the difficulty, pain, frustration, and challenge of the situation. Rather it is to face it as Christ did for us. Jesus didn't wait for us to realize we were wrong and come apologize before he would demonstrate his love. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). And it HURT! And he knew exactly what he was walking into.
That's when it clicked; to know the love of Christ is not just receiving it. In order to really know the love of Christ, you have to share it. "We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). "Anyone who does not love does not know God" (1 John 4:8). "If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us" (1 John 4:12). The only problem is that real love is hard!
Let's think about this:
How much energy, self-discipline, patience, and perseverance does it take to always act in love toward an infant? Oh, sure, some of the time they are precious, cute, sweet, little angels. But that sweet cherub can quickly turn into an irrational, smelly, messy, sleep-destroying, screaming monster. Yet we will treat that baby with all the tenderness and patience we can muster because he is a baby. He doesn't know what he needs. He can't communicate clearly. He can't even really control his own body. And so, love acts with all the strength it can muster to nurture and care for this precious child.
Fast forward a few decades. The baby is grown up...physically. However, sin has him acting like an infant. His wants keep him from understanding his true needs. His self-centeredness keeps him from being able to communicate clearly. He even acts in such a way that would make it seem as though he can't control his own body; whether driven by anger, lust, greed, or laziness, he acts on impulse.
How do we respond to this grown man? We don't have the same instinctual grace and patience for an adult as we do for a baby. Yet, we are still to act in love. Even when we are met with selfishness and pain, we are neither to act out in vengeance nor our own selfish desires. That kind of love is Hard!
That kind of love will take a great amount of strength and power. I can confidently say that I do not possess such power to demonstrate that kind of love...without God. And if we think that the love of God is just for "me," then we do not at all know the love of Christ.
People are hard to love. They are impossible to love in our own strength. But through the strengthening and power of the Holy Spirit, we can experience and know the love of God not just for ourselves, but for those around us as well. That is how we begin to truly know the love of Christ.
