ODJ: bigger than you imagine

February 14, 2015 

READ: Ephesians 3:14-21 

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 (v.18).

God loves us. Most of us know this. But how many of us feel it? Paul knew that understanding God’s love was a difficult proposition. He believed supernatural revelation was required even to get started (Ephesians 3:16,18). God’s love is so large and our comprehension so small. How can we ever truly understand His love for us?

Part of our problem is that we interpret God’s love through the lens of human love. If we understand God’s love to be anything like the distorted, damaging ‘love’ we’ve experienced from an abuser, or even the relatively good love of family and friends (at best limited, at worst tainted by wrong motives), we’ll forever feel cold about God’s love for us.

But there’s another way. Through the help of the Holy Spirit we can begin to grasp God’s love not by likeness to, but in contrast to, human love. Try this exercise: think of the most loving thing someone has done for you. Even as great as their act of love was, it’s tiny in contrast to God’s love for you. How tiny? Picture a grain of sand sitting next to a skyscraper. Picture a microbe next to Jupiter. Picture the tiniest trickle alongside the mightiest of rivers, or a strand of cotton next to a mile of fabric. Imagine the faintest scent against the strongest perfume, the quietest chirp against the loudest of thunderclaps. Compare a water drop to the Pacific Ocean, the flicker of a candle to the blaze of the sun, a single leaf to a forest of trees. That’s how tiny human love is, and how great God’s love is!

The truth is that God’s love can never be fully grasped, which means that all contrasts fall short! (v.19). It’s bigger than you could ever imagine.

—Sheridan Voysey

365-day plan› Exodus 19:1-25