How much do you really know about the love of God in Christ Jesus? I must admit that I am not sure and that I do not know much. Most have the "canned" words and the little religious sayings about His love but the shallowness is there. God's word speaks "to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge." (Eph. 3:19) The love of Christ goes beyond our knowing and our sense of understanding. Just pause and think about that for a moment.
Paul's prayer for the Ephesian disciples asks God that they may be "rooted and grounded in love" so that together with all the saints they could grasp "the breadth and length and height and depth" of the love of Christ. We need to give real pause and thought into the love of Christ by allowing Christ to settle in our hearts through faith.
God's love is wide! It is so wide that He can embrace all of humanity, even the most vile and sinful. Think about that. He wants His creation that was made in His image to be saved, all of them. It is man's choice to respond to His love, but His love is wide. The breadth of God's love reached 3000 on the day of Pentecost when they had murdered His Son. The preaching still continued, trying to reach out and bring people into His love. We sometimes think we have done so much wrong and evil that we are unreachable. Maybe we are unreachable because we reject His love?
God's love is long! Is there any price God will not pay to save us? To what lengths has He reached out toward us? Listen, it's one thing to like and enjoy a person but it another thing to love. It's one thing to have shallow affection and respect for another but it is another thing to love. We as humans limit how far we will go with another, especially if someone has hurt us. That's not the love of Christ. "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" (Rom. 8:32)
God's love is high! The love of God continually calls us upward into Him. We are so pathetic in our lives at times. Our weaknesses and failures. We disappoint others and ourselves yet God's love reaches out bringing us into His righteousness and perfection, calling us to live for Him. We were blessed with the Spirit of God when we were united by baptism into His Son and God's love was poured out into our hearts. (Makes you wonder why some in Christ are so loveless?) To walk by the Spirit you will see fruit benefiting from the relationship (Gal. 5:22-23). To walk after our selfishness will bring dishonorable things into our lives and it is called walking after the flesh (Gal. 5:19-21). A holy love calls people upward! A holy love calls us to let go of us and embrace Him so the transformation will take place.
God's love is deep! He loves the unlovable! We feel close to certain ones while others around us get on our nerves. We offer our help when people are in need but if they take us up on our offer too often, it begins to wear on us. People take advantage of our kindness and we feel betrayed. People use us for their selfish purposes and it irritates us to no end. Someone walks all over our cherished opinions and we find ourselves so appalled that...well, we will not let them into our lives again! But God's not like that. Daily the evil and vile use His goods, benefit from His rain and sunshine and what does He do? He still loves! No person is so contaminated that God will not reach out a loving hand to rescue or bless.
If we could only be rooted and grounded in His love that loved us, it would change us! It would change us so much that we would be filled up to all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19). It would carry us deeper into His purposes and strength. His love is a transforming love. It is so wide, long, high and deep that Paul said, "For the love of Christ controls us..." (II Cor. 5:14) Are we missing something?
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