Main Reference: Ephesians 3:19

Paul ends his prayer for the Ephesians as he began, by praying for knowledge. He acknowledges, though, that God’s love ‘surpasses knowledge.’ So how can we know something that surpasses knowledge? Only by remembering that Paul doesn’t mean the kind of knowing that simply recalls a fact. He means the kind of knowing that comes from experiencing and practicing the love of Christ.

Consider this example. I love my daughter, and I tell her so often. But ask her to define love as a concept, and she, like most of us, would be hard-pressed. Love surpasses her ability to define. Yet she believes me when I say the words, knows their truth, and her eyes light up when I smile and hug her. Her knowledge about my love has been deepened and enriched by how she experiences that love in me.

So we pray that a knowledge of God’s love would fill others with ‘all the fullness of God.’ Imagine God’s good news pressed into every corner of our lives, transforming us in every dimension. It goes far beyond any resolution we could design for ourselves. That’s Paul’s prayer, and when we pray as he did, we will be transformed, too—as radically as any 6-step program for rock-hard abs.