Surrounded by God’s Love
For someone who has spent most of his life with a calendar full of activities and very few nights at home, I can’t believe how I have adjusted to and enjoy a day without appointments and pressing activities. I guess that is what happens after spending several months in a hospital. So, this morning I worked on my state income tax return. I found out the “improvements” in technology turned a very “user-friendly” and quick process into a frustrating and laborious effort. So, I went “old school” and just used printed off the forms. We woke this morning to a spring snow with several an inch or so of accumulation. I was glad that I have felt good all day and got in a fitness center workout this afternoon.
BIBLE VERSE FOR TODAY…. “I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-19 HCSB
I recall as a young teen working on memorizing these verses. I can still remember the “light going on” as I was trying to repeat the dimensions Paul describes and realizing Paul is describing being surrounded by God’s love. Perhaps we can even say it is a picture of being “suspended” in God’s love. Every possible physical direction is used to attempt to describe the vastness of God’s love.
God’s love is higher than you can see. It is wider and more encompassing than imagined. It is longer than the eye can see from the highest of heights. God’s love is deeper than any valley. What that means is, regardless of where you are, however you view your circumstances you are not outside of the parameters of God’s love.
The psalmist declared, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” (Psalm 139:7-10 ESV)
Paul wrote to the Romans and said, “For I am persuaded that not even death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, hostile powers, height or depth, or any other created thing will have the power to separate us
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 8:38,39 HCSB)
Paul’s prayer is for Christ-followers to “comprehend” the love of God and Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge. Human knowledge can’t know, carnal minds can not comprehend the love of God. But when we commit our lives to Christ in faith, we place ourselves in a position to know and understand to the extent possible God’s love and what it means for us.
If find that is a life-long journey. It is a journey that takes place in community. Paul says, “with all the saints.” God’s love is not something we just “learn”, it is something we experience. It is through our experience of God’s love that we come to know and understand God’s love for us and others.
Paul’s desire is for believers to be “filled with all the fullness of God.” I can not even begin to communicate what that means or would look like. But when the love of God that is surrounding us, is “in us” it transforms our lives and how we view ourselves, our world and others.