“I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit. Then Christ will make His home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” (Ephesians 3:16-19 NLT)
Love is at the foundation of everything God does because love is who God is.
We’ve so cheapened the term “love” in the English language it’s difficult for us to grasp what it means when the Bible says that God loves us. Read again Paul’s beautiful prayer (above) and let’s allow the Lord to open our hearts and minds to a new understanding of what it means to be loved by the Designer, Creator, and Sustainer of all that is or ever will be.
If you’ve ever been away from the lights of the city and stared into the night sky, it’s as if the sky is ablaze with twinkling “lights,” we call stars. The closest star to earth is Proxima Centauri which is approximately 4.2465 light-years away. “Ho hum, so what!” you may be thinking. Consider this: A light year is nearly 6 trillion miles. Try to wrap your mind around that for a moment. But while your mind is spinning, consider that in the observable universe alone hosting hundreds of billions of galaxies, each contains billions of stars. And what we can “see” is only a fraction of what the Lord our God has designed and created. Yet, He calls them each by name! (Psalm 147:4)
And people still have the audacity to believe there is no God. Give me a break! But that’s telescopic information, turn your eye to the microscope. A recent study estimates that an average adult has between 30-37 trillion cells depending on sex, age, and body size. But why does any of this matter?
Because the same God who created all of this magnificence said in Matthew 10:30: “Even the very hairs on your head are all numbered.” Why would He say that? How would He even know? Because He’s God, He knows everything, but in His very next sentence He said: “So don’t be afraid!” The God of the universes is also the Creator of you and me. He formed us in our mother’s womb, creating us with care and precision and loving every detail of our being.
You are not an accident! You may have been born out of wedlock or survived an abortion attempt, but you are wanted, cherished, made in the image of a holy God and loved without reservation. The same God who created all the things we mentioned above chose to allow the thugs of the earth to humiliate and murder Him on an old, rugged Cross. He hung there suspended between heaven and earth by spikes that ripped His flesh and brought agonizing torture to His sinless body. But why? Because of LOVE!
His immeasurable love that sacrificed Himself because He saw in each of us unlimited potential for good and for God. I love Ray Majoran’s words when he prays: “By the power of Your Spirit, root and establish us in Your love (Ephesians 3:17), so that our lives are grounded in what cannot erode or collapse. In a world that measures worth by what is visible and immediate, grant us wisdom, together with all Your people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ (Ephesians 3:18). Lift our eyes to see its width that gathers the nations, its length that spans generations, its height that raises us toward holiness, and its depth that carried our sin to the cross. Teach us to know this love that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:19), so that we do not merely speak of it, but live from it.”
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 