Wednesday, May 5

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to hmi and praise his name. Psalm 100:4

Begin your time with God today with a prayer of thanksgiving for the blessings – spiritual and relational blessings as well as material blessings - he has showered on you.

Read:
Ephesians 3:17-19
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, 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.


When our boys were young one of their favorite books was a children’s book entitled, Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney. My guess is many of you remember this classic children’s tale. The story is about how two rabbits - Little Nut Brown Hare (the son rabbit) and Big Nut Brown Hare (the father rabbit) try to express their love for each other. They love each other as far as their arms can reach, and as high as they can hop. The “love contest” goes on until the son says “I love you to the moon!” Thinking nothing can be greater than that, he is surprised and delighted when his father says, “I love you to the moon…and back!”

In a way, Paul is telling the same story here – only he’s not talking about the love of parent for child, but rather the love of Christ for you and me. Some scholars have suggested that in referring to “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,” Paul is borrowing language that the astronomers of his day used to describe and define the known universe. In other words, when Paul seeks to answer the question, “Guess how much Jesus loves you?” he says – “more than the height, breadth, depth and length of the universe itself!”

Paul is teaching us that the love of Christ can be known and experienced but never exhausted or fully understood. Christ’s love can be known because it is real and intimate and personal. The love of Christ can be known through God’s word, through the whispering of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, and through the fellowship of the church. On the other hand, Christ’s love is unfathomable because it is utterly undeserved, unconditional, and unstoppable. The late songwriter Rich Mullins described this mystery of this love as “the reckless, raging fury that is the love of God.”

Do you know you have always been loved?
Do you know you will always be loved?
Do you know there is nothing you can do to make Jesus love you any more or any less than he does right at this moment?
Do you know that …really?

Take a few moments to allow yourself to be loved by Christ. Imagine his love as the ground you stand upon, as the air your breathe, as the universe that stretches as far as your mind can image and more, and ask him to fill your heart to overflowing with his love that surpasses knowledge.

Brian Coffey