To Encourage You

Ephesians 3:17-18 “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”

The love of God – all the words of all the languages in the world are insufficient to describe it, even if all the people who have ever lived did nothing their entire lives but talk about it. It is infinite! To think that “one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8). And to think that every sin of every sinner is, above all, directly and primarily a sin against Him. But then, when a person has the faith to turn away from that sin and into the arms of this loving Savior, he or she steps into an ocean of love that is vast beyond measure. It is so wide that to look at it, no matter how clear the day and how far the horizon, it is impossible to even begin to see the other side of it, let alone understand it. If one were to swim into it, it would exhaust him and he would drown in its midst before he ever began to reach the other shore. It is so long that it endures forever – no end of it is ever in sight, because no matter how long one has experienced it, it has only ever just begun. It is so high that if one were to look up from the bottom of the deepest sea to gaze at the surface of it, they would not see the surface, but rather the sky, and who could ever hope to see the top of that! It is so deep and mysterious that, like the ocean deep, all those who have ever tried have only begun to explore it and in that exploration, they aren’t able to do it on their own, but they need all the help they can get from others. It is so beautiful that no matter how many pictures are painted or how many photos are taken, there are more aspects to portray than all the artists and photographers who have ever lived can capture. And it is, like the waves, so powerful, that there is absolutely nothing in all the universe, can tame it.  In the words of that wonderful hymn, “The Love of God,”

“Could we with ink the ocean fill

And were the skies of parchment made

Were every stalk on earth a quill

And every man a scribe by trade

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry

Nor could the scroll contain the whole

Though stretched from sky to sky”

Do you know this love – even a little bit? It’s there as a free gift to all who would ask for it. And for those who don’t want it, what can be said for the depth of sin in the human heart, for it is only for the love of sin that one will reject the love of God. And that only magnifies the love of God, Who so loved the world, nevertheless, that He gave His only begotten Son to die for us. How magnificent is a love like that?!