“He showed them the full extent of His love.” John 13:1 NIV
“The dimensions of God’s love are immeasurable, but not unknowable!”
My thoughts today are about “love without end.”
Love is powerfully strong, as described in the Bible. See 1 Corinthians 13:4-8/13 NIV. But the love that we often give and receive can be rather fragile and fairly fickle. Our attempts at love bruises easily and changes unpredictably. That’s because our love seems to be conditional, dependent on the circumstance and the behavior of others – more like a relational thermostat merely registering the surrounding temperature, than a thermostat regulating temperatures. Imagine if God loved you, as you and I often love God and others.
The incredibly good news is that God’s love is nothing like your own, not fragile or fickle but enduring. Our love should be more like His! The disciples were not always an easy crowd with whom to spend one’s time. Like us sometimes, they often missed the point, struggled to keep up, substituted their agendas for His, were competitive with each other, had tempers and sensitive feelings, promised more than they could deliver, failed miserably on occasion, and bailed out on Jesus when everything was at stake. Sometimes, the only predictable thing about most people is their unpredictability. And still Jesus loved them in unimaginable, life-changing ways.
John marveled, “Jesus showed them the full extent of His love.” John 13:1 NIV. His love took the time to explain the Kingdom of God again and again; His love understood when they questioned, contradicted, denied, and even betrayed; His love endured when they fled from Him in fear for their own safety; His love brought Him from a grave and into a room where they huddled in fear, and to a lonely road when they returned home to Emmaus to resume their lives without Him, and to a seashore where men’s past experience and best efforts left their nets and lives empty. As you read the Old and New Testaments, you will find God modeling, in real life situations, the kind and quality of the love He also has for you today. See Romans 8:37-39.
Paul celebrated such love, “We were by nature objects of wrath. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ . . I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power . . to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 2:3-5/3:17-19 NIV. There is nothing you need more than a love without end.
The dimensions of love are immeasurable, but not unknowable! God’s love is without end; love that reaches to your lostness, perseveres through defiance, pursues in spite of waywardness, heals your brokenness, redeems your purpose and destiny, and prepares a place for you with Him eternally. And what does such love ask in return? He asks for your love, as He did with Peter, “And Jesus said to him the third time, ‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?’” Read John 21:15-17. Is Jesus waiting for your answer?
My prayer for you today is that you welcome the love of God to fill and thrill you.