Measuring the Immeasurable

...may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God (Eph 3:18-19).

Just how big is Jesus' love?  How broad is it?  How long is it?  How high is it?  How deep is it?  Have you ever sat down and tried to measure it?  Come on.  Go ahead.  Give it a shot.  I'll wait.  Back so soon?  You won't have a full appreciation for the massive scope and size of His love unless we try to wrap our arms and our minds around it.  Paul prays that his friends back in Ephesus "may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge" (v18-19).  Measure God's love.  Give it a shot.  Only when I try to gain some perspective of Jesus love will my jaw drop in worship and awe of Him.

That's what happens when I try to measure the immeasurable. 

Paul prays for the Ephesians because he knows that once they have some concept of Christ's amazing love, they won't fall for anything less.  That's exactly why he's writing to them.  There's a heresy making the rounds that's damaging churches just down the road in places like Colossae, Hierapolis and Laodicea.  A team of spiritual snake oil salesmen have duped followers of Jesus into believing a lie.  According to these false teachers, Jesus was good but not God.  He may have gotten us into God's kingdom but it's up to us to stay there.  They fooled folks into thinking the only way to do that is by following a complicated list of religious rules.  After setting the Colossians straight, Paul writes to the Ephesian church.  He knows that if we see Jesus for who He is, what He's done and who we are in Him, we won't fall for this false teaching or any other counterfeit gospel.  And a BIG part of that is trying comprehend the immense extent of Christ's love.

Measuring the immeasurable.

So what unit of measure should we use to size the love of Christ?  Inches, feet, miles or light years?  Ounces, pounds or tons?  Pints, gallons or cubic miles?  What instrument is best suited for the job?  Ruler, odometer, scale or telescope?  The best instrument to measure Jesus' love for you and me is a Roman cross.  That's the only tool capable of measuring the immeasurable.  Jesus said so Himself.  He told His crew, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (Jn 15:13).  Paul wrote to the folks in Rome that the timing of Jesus' sacrificial death is one stunning yardstick of God's love.  "But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8).  

Jesus loves me so much that He lived the perfect life that I've failed to live.  Jesus loves me so much that He died the brutal death for sin that I should have died.  Jesus loves me so much that He rose to a spectacular new life that I certainly do not deserve.  Paul was so shocked at the scope of Jesus' sacrifice and how He "loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal 2:20).

The cross of Christ is the only tool capable of measuring the immeasurable.