The fact that Paul regularly breaks into prayer while writing his letters demonstrates how faith pervaded his life. One of his prayers is Ephesians 3:14-19, where he uses three paradoxes to express our need for God’s power in order to apprehend God’s love.

Paul’s prays that God “may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts.” How could the infinite, holy, Word of Life reside, katoikeo, in a mortal, fallen, human being? How can God inhabit man? Christ dwelling in our hearts, the center of our being, our affections, our identity—what a glorious mystery! Only if God Himself strengthens us with power can this union of love take place.

Paul adds “that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of the love of Christ. The Greek word, katalambano, here translated “comprehend,” can be rendered “grasp,” “seize” “catch” or “overtake.” Believers need strength from God to grasp or catch the love that ranges immeasurably north, south, east, and west. How can limited people seize or hold a divine love that extends as high as the heavens, as deep as the oceans, as far as the horizons, east and west? We need God’s strength to grasp the extent of God’s love.

Paul ends this prayer by asking that readers “may have strength…to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” We need God’s strength in order to know, ginosko, that which is beyond knowledge, gnosis. The mysteries of God’s love transcend the capacity of the human mind. Could we fit the deserts of the world in a jar, the waters of the ocean in a glass? Can the inexpressible love of God be fully expounded by human conceptions? We must have God’s strength if we are to understand God’s love.

Paul’s prayer suggests that it’s actually impossible to be in-dwelled by (katoikeo), to grasp (katalambano), or to know (ginosko) the Father’s love without the supernatural empowerment of the Son and the Spirit. And so, one more demonstration of God’s love is that He gives all of Himself to help us: “power through his Spirit in [our] inner being” and the person of Christ, who came in the flesh so that flesh could see.