The past several days, God has been teaching me a lot about His love. These things are certain: God's love is endless; it is perfect; it is quite unlike anything we can comprehend. God alone can satisfy our deepest needs and desires. He knows us intimately, and desires us to know Him too.
He is the King of love. Everything love is, He Himself is. In our quest for love we don't need to look any further than Jesus. Everything we have sought and searched for, is found at His nail-pierced feet. He is truly all we need. Can we fathom how much He loves us, loved us when we were yet sinners, loves us still? I know I can't! Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
A phrase suddenly comes back to me from the movie "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe." Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy and the beavers have just made the escape from the wolves and happen to meet a fox. The fox declares that Aslan has asked him to gather more troops for battle. "You've seen Aslan! What's he like?" The beavers ask excitedly. "Like everything we have ever heard," the fox replies.
That is what Jesus is. He is everything we have ever heard and hoped for, and far beyond.
Psalm 139:7-10 says, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast."
How do we take part of that perfect, endless, unfathomable love? I think by purposing to know God Himself, by spending much time each day acquainting ourselves with Christ. There is so much more to be discovered in Him.
Are we afraid? Perfect love casts out fear. Are we empty? He can fill. Do we long to follow after Him? We must remain in His love.
Fear is the enemy's weapon against us. Sometimes we can feel pinned down by anxiety, worry and doubt but God is able to lift us out of this and into glorious victory. Love conquers all fear. The one who fears is not made perfect in love (1 John 4:18). By knowing Him, by truly loving Him, we come to trust Him more than we ever have before. In His presence is complete rest and peace.
And even more amazing is that when we come to dwell in God's love for us, we are filled to overflowing in return and can be joyfully emptied out to others. We can't love our neighbours unless we dwell in God and allow Him to pour out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). There is no greater joy in the world than to be a brimming cup of love.
All I can think of is that beautiful scene at the end of the "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" when they go sailing through an endless sea of white lilies. I was going to describe it myself, but find in much more beautiful and true in C.S. Lewis' own words:
Very soon the open sea which they were leaving was only a thin rim of blue on the western horizon. Whiteness, shot with faintest colour of gold, spread round them on every side, except just astern where their passage had thrust the lilies apart and left an open lane of water that shone like dark green glass. To look at, this last sea was very like the Arctic; and if their eyes had not by now grown strong as eagles' the sun on all that whiteness made the daylight last longer. There seemed no end to the lilies. Day after day from all those miles and leagues of flowers there rose a smell which Lucy found it very hard to describe; sweet---yes, but not at all sleepy or overpowering, a fresh, wild, lonely smell that seemed to get into your brain and make you feel that you could go up mountains at a run or wrestle with an elephant. She and Caspian said to one another, "I feel that I can't stand much more of this, yet I don't want it to stop."
This reminds me so much of God's love. Untiring, never ending, overwhelming, sweet, and quite beyond what we can even imagine.
He is the King of love. Everything love is, He Himself is. In our quest for love we don't need to look any further than Jesus. Everything we have sought and searched for, is found at His nail-pierced feet. He is truly all we need. Can we fathom how much He loves us, loved us when we were yet sinners, loves us still? I know I can't! Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
A phrase suddenly comes back to me from the movie "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe." Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy and the beavers have just made the escape from the wolves and happen to meet a fox. The fox declares that Aslan has asked him to gather more troops for battle. "You've seen Aslan! What's he like?" The beavers ask excitedly. "Like everything we have ever heard," the fox replies.
That is what Jesus is. He is everything we have ever heard and hoped for, and far beyond.
Psalm 139:7-10 says, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast."
How do we take part of that perfect, endless, unfathomable love? I think by purposing to know God Himself, by spending much time each day acquainting ourselves with Christ. There is so much more to be discovered in Him.
Are we afraid? Perfect love casts out fear. Are we empty? He can fill. Do we long to follow after Him? We must remain in His love.
Fear is the enemy's weapon against us. Sometimes we can feel pinned down by anxiety, worry and doubt but God is able to lift us out of this and into glorious victory. Love conquers all fear. The one who fears is not made perfect in love (1 John 4:18). By knowing Him, by truly loving Him, we come to trust Him more than we ever have before. In His presence is complete rest and peace.
And even more amazing is that when we come to dwell in God's love for us, we are filled to overflowing in return and can be joyfully emptied out to others. We can't love our neighbours unless we dwell in God and allow Him to pour out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). There is no greater joy in the world than to be a brimming cup of love.
All I can think of is that beautiful scene at the end of the "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" when they go sailing through an endless sea of white lilies. I was going to describe it myself, but find in much more beautiful and true in C.S. Lewis' own words:
Very soon the open sea which they were leaving was only a thin rim of blue on the western horizon. Whiteness, shot with faintest colour of gold, spread round them on every side, except just astern where their passage had thrust the lilies apart and left an open lane of water that shone like dark green glass. To look at, this last sea was very like the Arctic; and if their eyes had not by now grown strong as eagles' the sun on all that whiteness made the daylight last longer. There seemed no end to the lilies. Day after day from all those miles and leagues of flowers there rose a smell which Lucy found it very hard to describe; sweet---yes, but not at all sleepy or overpowering, a fresh, wild, lonely smell that seemed to get into your brain and make you feel that you could go up mountains at a run or wrestle with an elephant. She and Caspian said to one another, "I feel that I can't stand much more of this, yet I don't want it to stop."
This reminds me so much of God's love. Untiring, never ending, overwhelming, sweet, and quite beyond what we can even imagine.
O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean
In its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me,
Is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward
To Thy glorious rest above!
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean
In its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me,
Is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward
To Thy glorious rest above!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
Spread His praise from shore to shore!
How He loveth, ever loveth,
Changeth never, nevermore!
How He watches o’er His loved ones,
Died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth,
Watcheth o’er them from the throne!
Spread His praise from shore to shore!
How He loveth, ever loveth,
Changeth never, nevermore!
How He watches o’er His loved ones,
Died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth,
Watcheth o’er them from the throne!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
Love of every love the best!
’Tis an ocean vast of blessing,
’Tis a haven sweet of rest!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
’Tis a heaven of heavens to me;
And it lifts me up to glory,
For it lifts me up to Thee!
~ Samuel Trevor Francis
Love of every love the best!
’Tis an ocean vast of blessing,
’Tis a haven sweet of rest!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
’Tis a heaven of heavens to me;
And it lifts me up to glory,
For it lifts me up to Thee!
~ Samuel Trevor Francis
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