The Dimensions of God’s 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….
Ephesians 3:17-18 NIV 

In school we learned that there are three dimensions – length, width, and height.  Using those measurements, we can determine the size of just about anything.  Later, I heard that the fourth dimension is time.  That put a new kink into it.

However, in Ephesians, it says that God’s love for us has four dimensions – width, length, height, and depth.  Isn’t that using one twice?   And what about time?  

God is Eternal, and His love for us is eternal.  He chose us before the foundation of the world… before we could do anything to “earn” His Love… before time.  Wow!  Eternal Love… no beginning… no end!  That is unfathomable by itself… the time dimension of His Love… but that still leaves four more dimensions of His love.

You might think of it this way.

Picture yourself standing before God.  You stretch out your arms to the sides.  If you are close enough, you may touch someone else.  Maybe you give them a hug…. Maybe it is someone you don’t want to hug.  Now God does the same thing.  You can’t reach very far, or very many people, but God’s arms are much longer.  They reach as far as there is to reach.  They can hug the whole world.  They can hug those you want to hug, but can’t reach.  They can hug anyone, anywhere, anytime.  And there is no one that He doesn’t want to hug.  That is the width of God’s love.  

OK, now you stretch out your arms in front of you.   Again, you can reach only a very short way in the direction you are facing.  God’s arms can reach much farther than yours, and He can reach behind too.  Here again I thought of time.  I can touch now.  God can touch the now… and the past and future, too.  That is the length of God’s love.  

Two more directions to go.  Reach up.  No matter how tall or short you are, compared to God you can’t reach very far.  He is El Elyon, the Most High God.  No thing, no one, no power is higher that He is.  Not Satan, not sickness, not poverty, not terrorists, not anything…. Nothing is higher, bigger, stronger, taller than God.  That is the height of God’s love. 

One more to go.  Reach down.  Better yet, think of how down you’ve felt.  How deep the pit you are in… or have been in.  No pit is too deep for God’s love to reach you and lift you out.    Psalm 40:1-2 says “I waited patiently for the Lord, He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.” You can almost hear the sucking sound as the Lord lifts you up out of the muck that is trying so hard to hold you.  And He sets you a on a rock… but not just any rock.  Jesus is the Rock.  And you are filthy and smelly.  But wait, this rock is different.  You don’t stay filthy and smelly.  He cleans you off… inside and out!  That is the depth of God’s love.

Thank you, Lord, that you have such long arms to love me.