JC's Village

What was it that first drew you to Christ?

For many of us - it is the love of God that we first learn to sing about and it's that love that has left the most lasting mark on our souls. And this is right and good - since love is what compelled God to rescue us.

It was because God loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.

It was because of love that Jesus that He endured the cross.

It is the love of God that moved him to graft us wild olive shoots into the vine.

It is the love of Jesus our Good Shepherd - that He searches for us like a lost coin, a lost sheep - and even a lost son.

It is the love of God that moved Him to adopt us and welcome us to Him when we cry out "Abba, Father!"

It is the love of God that moves us from meaningless love - to the real deal - of the sort we read about in 1 Corinthians 13.

It is the love of God that transforms us so we can "one-another" in all the ways the New Testament describes.

It is the love of God that will welcome us to our true home in our true country at the end of our sojourn here.

Can we possibly meditate too much on God's love? Can we possibly - express too much gratitude for God's love? In the last half of E phesians 3:14-21 - Paul prays a tall order on our behalfs when it comes to our comprehension of God's love.

"and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God."

Paul prays for all of us to know with all those who are God's that we may comprehend the breadth, length, height and depth ... is that redundant? I don't think so - I believe another way to read this might be "density" in addition to the normal axes associated with our three dimensional world. What might be the density of God's love? I doubt it's air, or fluff ... I think God has a tendency to really give us a thing when He makes a gift. Maybe we can think of God's love coming to us at the density of a neutron star. Just one teaspoonful of the material that makes up a neutron star would weigh at least as much as a mountain. Whoa.

Interestingly - it's the interaction of neutron stars that is thought to have produced the gold that's so highly prized the world over ... how apt a metaphor for God's love - don't you think?

As if that weren't mind-blowing enough - Paul is praying that we also would be filled with all the fullness of God. He doesn't pray that we be filled to our fullness with God ... but that we be filled with the fullness of God ... or God's fullness.

Regardless of semantics - which though actually a powerful line by which to win arguments - we are encouraged not just in this prayer of Paul's - but all through out scripture to make it a life-long goal to perceive as far as we can - all the the way to the other side of God's love.

There is absolutely no limit to God though - so there can be no point at which we finish this fine goal. Wherever you are today - and wherever I am today - there is an infinity more to gain. There are people with lengthy bucket lists for vacations, for meals they want to try, for national parks they'd like to visit, and on and on. And yet there are some of us who haven't thought for a long, long time about Jesus and His love. There are some of us who haven't sung "Jesus loves me" since we were little children - and in the interim we've had much of our confidence in that love stolen away from us, or some of that assurance has become forgotten.

Scripture is sprinkled here and there with prayers for our understanding of God's love - for God's love to bring His work in us to completion, and even dozens of encouragements that we'd meditate on God, God's law, God's love - and I do believe that those last three are effectively synonymous. There are so many methods of prayer - and yet I've still not come across even a single one that directly incorporates engaging with God's love in our prayers. There are not so many methods of meditation - and frankly - I've never heard a single one mentioned but that analogy of how a cow digests - which is all fine and good for the cow - but actually explains little of how precisely to go about meditating.

So - wherever you may be - whatever your weekend hold - let's take a few moments to lay aside any of this week's burdens still trailing along behind us - and leave them outside that door we discussed last Friday - and step into that space that inspires you - and there pray with Paul that we might indeed comprehend God's vast Love for us a little more. If you like it there - then feel free to linger a bit and mull over this prayer and meditate.

May God's great Love warm, fill and heal all our souls.