Pacific Ocean. Nile River. Mount Everest. Mariana trench. Even the widest, longest, highest and deepest things I can think of have limits. Their Creator determined their boundaries in His perfect wisdom, and when we, in our finite humanity, approach these large demonstrations of His power, our own size not only becomes apparent, but we find a sense of awe we may have forgotten was wired in us. So, imagine my delight when the Spirit brought me this beautiful reminder in Ephesians 3: "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 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (v.17b-19) Readers, the love of our God has breadth, length, height and depth...or does it? I know Paul was just using a metaphor trying to encapsulate the infinite into something comprehensible for us, but let me just share what the size of His love means to me. The fact that His love has breadth means that He has loved me widely. It is so vast that it covers all of my sin (Seriously, stop reading this and check out Micah 7:18-19). His love is able to be present in all circumstances and situations in which I find myself. No, it is not narrow and limited in what it can extend to. When I stand on the shores of the Pacific, I can only see so far, but I know from seeing other images that have a higher perspective, it goes far beyond that. HOW. MUCH. MORE. does the love of my God have breadth? Just imagine how vast it must be! As the Lord was expanding my understanding, something about the word "broad" triggered a file on the hard drive of my heart. Ah yes, Psalm 18, one I had hidden and saved several years ago held a treasure: "He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me" (v. 19). The spacious location he took me to was HIS LOVE. Let that sink in. That big open field you just pictured, that place full of freedom and unrestrained joy is HIS LOVE. Vast and boundless indeed. It would be enough that His love for me has breadth, but it also has length. I love the comparison to the Nile River, that it "happens" to be the longest in the world, the one that once was filled with blood proving God's power as superior over creation then; even as we saw how long His love for us when He shed His blood at the cross. His love was around before I knew Him, is longer than I can perceive even in this moment, and will endure far beyond Time. "Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13: 13 It is described as steadfast 191 times in the Bible which is rather significant. We can't forget His Word is a hammer, used in its original context to "break the rocks [false prophets] in pieces," (Jeremiah 23:29) but maybe also to make sure we get truths like this one in our heart's heads. His love is STEADFAST. His love is STEADFAST. His love is STEADFAST. Maybe if I repeated that 191 times a day I would remember how long it is. His love has every right to have height. It has the greatest of dignity due to its superiority over all other loves. It is elevated above all the false ones because it was willing to go to the lowest of places, the earth. He was so kind to look down from his holy height and see us. (Psalm 102:19) Love was willing to show how high He really is by this: "Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. THEREFORE God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name." Philippians 2:6-9, emphasis mine There it was again. That internal bell dinging that I have seen height associated somewhere with His love. Do you know it? "nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:39 No matter how high I try to climb, I cannot ascend beyond His love for me! That verse segues us beautifully into the last measurement: depth. We already know from Romans 11:33 that His riches and wisdom and knowledge are deep, but we learn from our Ephesians verse that His love is too. We also know that the Spirit is the One who searches the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2:10) AND that He produces fruit in us that tastes like love. How sweet that we can be strengthened to understand His love to even greater depths, far deeper than that of the Mariana Trench and not be crushed under the weight of His love! Wow. That's a lot of love. A whole lot to process and digest, at least it has been for me. The more I fathom that this Love is for me, the more unworthy I feel even while embracing the fullness that comes with this knowledge. Reader, His love is oh-so-much bigger than you can possible measure, and He aims it at you. You are not strong enough to hold it back, and it WILL crush your fears if you let it. THANK JESUS.
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