Experiencing the Love of Christ

Valentine’s Day gives us a focus on romantic love, but as children of the living God there is a greater love that we should experience, love beyond our understanding.

The Apostle Paul prayed that the Christians at Ephesus would know this love: “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge....” (Ephesians 3:17-19) The word Paul used for know meant to have a progressively closer and more intimate relationship with someone.

In Scripture, we Christians are referred to as the bride of Christ. Now, when any bride and bridegroom marry, they are meant to have this kind of relationship, progressively growing closer to one another. At first, they don’t have a full understanding of the love they share or what it can become. Love evolves, it deepens, it becomes richer, fuller, more intimate as two lives grow together.

Imagine that Christ’s love is all of that--and more. Our lives are to be so entwined with His that we abide in Him, and He in us—that we are inseparably one. Let us pray for ourselves as Paul prayed, that we will experience the love of Christ personally through the power of the Spirit.

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