“I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:16-19
Within the tabernacle stood a sacred place called the Holy of Holies, the dwelling place of God’s presence. As we have observed over the past 7 weeks, each part of the tabernacle has some sort of connection to Christ and the specific design of the Holy of Holies is no different. It was built as a perfect square and as such, represents the perfection and completeness of Christ’s love for us.
The above verses from Ephesians are some of my favorites in Scripture because they talk about the immeasurability of Christ’s love. The amount of love He has for you and me cannot be found on earth and as such it is hard for us to grasp. But, that is one of the very things I love about it. As a student, I spend a lot of my time trying to understand concepts in their entirety. There are some things I can know fully while there are others I can’t, which is what enables me to be a lifelong learner. If I was able to know everything there is to know about the human body at the end of my 4-year graduate program, the rest of my professional career would be rather boring to me. In a similar manner, I will spend the rest of my life experiencing and trying to understand this perfect love Paul describes in his letter to the Ephesians all the while growing in awe of its vastness.
Paul lists four directional components of Christ’s love: width, height, length, and depth. If you stand in the center of the Holy of Holies, and look to both sides, up, down, in front of, and behind yourself, you would be completely surrounded by Christ’s love. No matter what your past may hold, Christ has forgiven it and God is working it out for His good and glory. No matter how deep in sin you currently find yourself, Christ wants to pull you out of the depths and wrap His loving arms around you. And everything ahead of you, your future, belongs to Christ and He desires to be included in every part of your life until the day you meet Him at the pearly gates. And as you sit there reading this, His love is all around you. Bask in that love today and for the rest of your days!
In His love,
Suzanne Teuben
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