Oh, where to start with such a rich, deep passage of Scripture? One thinks of a little boy who hid out in the bathroom of a candy store until after closing time and finding himself locked in for the night, then uttering a simple prayer to his Heavenly Father, "God make my capacity equal to this opportunity!"
Note that there are two elements here ... one is derived from God's wealth; note that Paul says, "I pray that out of [literally according to] His glorious riches that He may strengthen you with power" [v. 16a]. It is futile to beg money from a poor man, no matter how eloquent and passionate the appeal may be. But to come before the One "from whom are all things and to whom are all things" [Romans 11:36] that is an entirely different matter! Such are the resources from which He strengthens us. The other element is the efficacy of the Holy Spirit in restoring/regenerating our inner being. Paul speaks further of this in 2 Corinthians 4:16 -- "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day." We are renewed and empowered for life, and we grow stronger and stronger even while our bodies grow older and weaker. We become frail containers pulsating with divine power! In this way we become full of Christ. He "dwells in our hearts through faith." This is a beautiful upward spiral: our capacity is strengthened according to His riches so we can appropriate more of His life; His life thus fills us and thus enlarges our capacity so we can hold more of Him within. And so it goes onward and upward with and toward Christ.
Years ago Dr. Barnhouse pointed out that love is intrinsic to all the fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22. He said, "Love is the key. Joy is love singing. Peace is love resting. Long-suffering is love enduring. Kindness is love's touch. Goodness is love's character. Faithfulness is love's habit. Gentleness is love's self-forgetfulness. Self-control is love holding the reigns. There is no fruit of the Spirit without love!
This will become all the more important to remember as we turn our focus to the infinite love of Christ. The Four Magnitudes -- width, length, height and depth -- are poetic expressions for the infinitude of Christ's love even as these dimensions can be said to express:
1. A love that is wide enough to embrace the world [John 3:16].
2. A love which is long enough to last forever [1 Corinthians 13:8].
3. A love which is high enough to take sinners to Heaven [1 John 3:1, 2].
4. A love which is deep enough to take Christ to the very depths so as to reach the lowest sinner [Philippians 2:8].
The Four Magnitudes describe an infinite, incomprehensible love. In the words of A. W. Tozer, " ... because God is self-existent, His love had no beginning; because He is eternal, His love can have no end; because He is infinite, it has no limit; because He is holy, it is the quintessence of all spotless purity; because He is immense, His love is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless, shoreless sea. ... "
Christ's love is, indeed, incomprehensible, but Paul, nevertheless, prays for our comprehension, that we "may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp" its dimensions -- literally, to take hold of them, to seize them. He knows this is impossible, but he calls us to this grand spiritual exercise for the health of our souls. It is to be our life's occupation. But note also that this is not to be a solitary pursuit, but rather one done in community, "together with all the saints." It not an accident that God has chosen to operate this way, but rather by divine design. He made us such that we need each other to more fully understand His Word when preached, to worship Him more spiritually, to more encouragingly relate our experiences of and with Him to others, and to see better His work in the lives of others for our own edification.
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