Known and Loved

Guess what you’d expect a pastor to pray for you. More obedience. More Bible knowledge. More serving. Loving God harder. All good things.

But when Paul prays for the church in Ephesus, that’s not where he starts.

He doesn’t ask God to make them love him more. He asks God to help them see how much they’re already loved.

When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 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 is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

— Ephesians 3:14–19 (NLT)

Read that again slow.

He’s not praying for more effort. He’s praying for more strength, so Christ can settle into their hearts, so their roots can grow down into a love that’s already there. Then and only then does he ask for the power to actually get how big it is. Wide. Long. High. Deep. Like one direction isn’t enough to cover it.

And then he does something kind of wild: he prays they’d experience a love that’s “too great to understand fully.” He’s asking God to help them grasp the ungraspable.

That’s a different starting point than “try harder.” Most of us don’t change because we gutted out more willpower. We change because something got a hold of us first. Paul seems to be betting that if this love actually lands, the loving-back takes care of itself.

So maybe that’s the move. Not lowering the bar on obedience or growth. Just getting the order right… rooted first, reaching second.

BEN DAILEY

www.awakenchurch.ac

benwdailey@awakenchurch.ac

972.261.1919

LEAD PASTOR