ODJ: love, life and religion

December 6, 2014 

READ: Ephesians 3:14-21 

Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love (v.17).

In the book Bono: A Self-Portrait in Conversation, the legendary U2 vocalist shared these thoughts on God’s love with author Michka Assayas. “My understanding of the Scriptures,” Bono says, “has been made simple by the person of Christ. Christ teaches that God is love. What does that mean? What it means for me: a study of the life of Christ. Love here describes itself as a child born in straw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all, without honour. I don’t let my religious world get too complicated. . . . God is love, and as much as I respond in allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that love, that’s my religion.”
The apostle Paul wrote often about God’s remarkable love, striving to capture its fullness as found in His Son (Ephesians 3:17). Though undeserved, God’s love is given to us freely through Jesus and—astonishingly—unlike any other love, it can’t be taken from us.
“I am convinced,” wrote Paul, “that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39)
As we more fully understand “how wide, how long, how high and how deep his love is,” Paul explains, “then [we] will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God” (Ephesians 3:18-20).
It’s in the context of such love that we experience transformation that compels us to make our life and religion, as Bono says, one of love. —Roxanne Robbins
365-day plan› Colossians 3:1-17