THE LOVE OF GOD

THE LOVE OF GOD

I was impressed by a devotional thought in ODB (Our Daily Bread) on Mar 4th, 2009. The author quoted the words of an old hymn by this name, which you might be familiar with.

"Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made.

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade.

To write the love of God above,

Would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky."

The author of these lyrics was probably influenced by the words of Paul's prayer to the Ephesian church, as recorded in (Eph 3:14-21), especially verses 18-19 "And 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. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God." NLT. Some Bible scholars believe "width" means its world wide scope (John 3:16), "length" its existence through all ages (Eph 3:21), "height" its victory over sin, opening the way to heaven (Eph 4:8), "depth" its profound wisdom (Rom 11:33). When we consider carefully the scope of these above mentioned words, truly this love of God is far beyond our understanding! Love like this cannot be explained, it can only be experienced! John was know as the "Apostle of love" because he wrote so much about it. Besides (John 3:16), which is probably the best known verse in the Bible, he also wrote three letters that were full of references to love. For example in (1 John 4:7-21) you can count between 25 and 30 uses of some form of the word love, depending on what version of the Bible you use! Then in (Rom 5:5) we read "---for we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love"! I trust you are presently experiencing this "love of God"! If not--why not?

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer