Here is love!

Mar 13
6 min read

How about restarting a journey into that vast territory of God's love?

I believe such a journey of experiencing God's love in a deeper way will expand and transform your life and mine, more than anything.

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:17-19).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2tcq8DE8-U

Paul prays for us to be “rooted and established in love.”

‘Rooted’ gives a picture of an extensive root system that not only attaches itself to the source of nutrients but keeps the plant set in its place. Interestingly, the Greek word for ‘rooted’ means ‘to cause to take root and be stabilised by such.’ Now, imagine the ongoing result of this action when it comes to God's love!

The implication of Paul’s analogy of roots going deeper is that the source of their strength comes from the rich soil in which they are planted. The roots don’t hold the power, the soil does.

‘Established’ is more structural or architectural and offers us another picture of stability and strength.

It's worth noting that both of the metaphors are tied to love. Love must be the foundation of our Christian life. Without this we cannot know the fullness of God.

Because of God’s love we are unshakably ‘rooted’ into His life and ‘established’, becoming well-founded, designed and set in His love.

NT Wright says, “It means knowing God as the all-loving, all-powerful Father; it means putting down roots into that love... It means having that love turn into a well-directed and effective energy in one’s personal life.”

Such a process makes us the people capable of knowing, experiencing and declaring the love of Christ to others. Actually there’s no other way!

You see, unless we grow in His love, we’ll lose the passion for His life.

Henri Nouwen once said, “The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God”

The Christian life is primarily about a person to love rather than a practice to live. So, what’s the priority in your life, your work, your relationships?

“And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love” (Eph 3:17).

The love of God is not only the foundation upon which we build our life; it is the continual experience of the Christian life.

1. How wide is the love of Christ?

Wide enough to include everyone!

Monty our grandson used to say to his nana, “Do you know how much I love you?” He’d spread his arms as wide as he could and say, “Thiiiiiiis much!” And then give her a big hug.

Why don't you allow Father God do the same today.

How much does Jesus love you? Thiiiiis much! So wide, that on the cross, Jesus spread out His arms and embraced the whole world!

John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

(Look at last week’s blog to get a clearer understanding on this verse)

2. How long is the love of Christ?

Long enough to last forever.

A song sums it up: ‘Such love, springs from eternity, such love, streaming through history, such love fountain of life to me, O Jesus, such love.’

Christ's love doesn't waver. The love that allows Jesus to say before the creation of the world ‘I will do whatever’s necessary to rescue humanity and reconcile them to the Father’ (Eph 1:4,5; 1 Pet 1:20), is the same love we experience now.

It’s so long that you’ll never come to the end of it. So long that it will always outlast you! It’s longer than your rebellion. Run as long as you can, but the love of Christ is longer still. Resist or be stubborn as long as you will, but the love of Christ is longer still.

Jeremiah 31:3: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness."

God is speaking to the Israelites in captivity. They had a long history of ignoring, rebelling and disobeying God. Eventually, they ended up as slaves in Babylon.

But God promises to take them home, to restore them. Why? He loved them with an everlasting love; a love that wouldn’t quit; a love that kept pursuing them.

3. How high is the love of Christ?

High enough to get me to heaven.

"For great is your love, higher than the heavens” (Ps 108).

So high that it will take me all through life and into eternity.

God’s love for me is much sturdier than my love for Him. God’s commitment to me is much stronger than my commitment to Him.

Romans 8:35-39 (TLB) says,"Who then can ever keep Christ’s love from us? When we have trouble or calamity, is it because he doesn’t love us anymore? And if we are hungry or penniless or in danger or threatened with death, has God deserted us? No, …..For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, or where we are—high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean—nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us."

Paul says that there is nothing in this life or the next that could ever separate us from the love of Christ.

Your heavenly Father loves you so much that He will never let anything separate you from Him and His love.

4. How deep is the love of Christ?

Deep enough to die on a cross.

Jesus "made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-even death on a cross!" (Phil 2:5-8).

Jesus emptied Himself and then humbled Himself all the way to death on a cross. Down, down, down - God came all the way down. As far down as a man can go, as deep down as the deepest sinner, the love of God is deeper still.

How deep is the love of Christ? Deep enough to die on a cross.

Remember this?

Wide, wide as the ocean, high as the heavens above;

deep, deep as the deepest sea is my Saviour’s love.

I, though so unworthy, still am a child of his care,

for his word teaches me, that his love reaches me, ev'rywhere.

"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?" (Ps 139).

Do you know that there's nowhere we can go to escape God, and that wherever God is, love is, because God is love?

How deeply does God love you? Look at the Cross.

Roms 5:8: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

A. W. Tozer says, "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 God is immense, His love is incomprehensively vast, bottomless, shoreless, a sea, an eternal ocean."

It’s not unknowable, but it is so vast that it can’t be completely known!

It 'SURPASSES knowledge' – in the Greek, the word ‘surpasses’ literally means a point which exceeds the extraordinary; expressing a degree beyond comparison; to transcend the immeasurable!

‘Surpasses’ or ‘Surpassing’ is one of Paul’s favourite words – surpassing glory (2 Cor 3:10); surpassing power (2 Cor 4:7); surpassing grace (2 Cor 9:14); surpassingly great revelations (2 Cor 12:7); surpassing worth (Phil 3:8).