I have been dwelling on how much God loves us a lot recently - a lot of my musings are personal and probably familiar territory for many believers. Summed up - SO much for one SO undeserving. Revel with me for a moment on the gloriousness of that love. An unending, unfailing, wonderful, vast, all-encompassing love, a love that stoops, a love that is no common love, a love that is undeserved, that cannot be measured, in a class all by itself. A love that cannot be defined or even described - it’s too lofty, wonderful and vast for a vocabulary to describe! I mean how can you describe a love that loved us before the foundation of the World, before we had character or being or life, that loved us from before - in advance, that loved us to the point of sacrifice - He died for us, that same love echoes through every day of eternity. From one day to the next it’s there bellowing across Creation, time, space, every heart-beat, the inescapable love of God - the Psalmist uses the very extreme places to show us you can’t get away from this love in Psalm 139 - the deepest oceans, the highest Heavens etc etc! You cannot escape this vast wondrous love.
A love that’s sweeter than honey, more precious than silver, a love better than wine, a love given freely, a love like that of a Bridegroom for His Bride, a love like a Father, a love that protects like a Shepherd does His sheep, a love that stoops with grace to lift the broken, a love that treasures, a love that is so constant that it ‘endures forever!’ A love that is lavished and is not dependent on the recipient in any way! What a love! Love vast as the ocean! Love deeper than all my sin and shame, A ridiculous love that is plentiful, bountiful, astounding and unmatched. A love that doesn’t ever stop let alone pause- a consistent, constant, wonderful love. A love that does not cloy - never enough! A love that is SO huge our tiny human brains cannot fully take it in! A love that is beyond time….. in every moment of history, right here in the present and is already in our tomorrow! What a love!
And this my friend is the love of Christ for you. A wildly, outrageous, enormous love - so when we are loved like this what impact does that have on the way we love? On the way we love our neighbour, our family, our brother and sister in Christ? Surely the impact of being recipients of such a love must cause us to love well, to love on a scale that is different to the World’s expectations, to love with a love that we have received! What a challenge to my heart today!
