Do you know how much God loves you?
I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts,
living within you as you trust in him.
May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvellous love;
and may you be able to feel and understand,
as all God’s children should,
how long, how wide, how deep,
and how high his love really is;
and to experience this love for yourselves,
though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it.
And so at last you will be filled up with God himself.
(Ephesians 3.17-19; Living Bible)
St Paul writes those verses in his letter to the Ephesians about the dimensions of God’s love – essentially it is wider, longer, higher, deeper than we could ever get our heads around. It is wider than the universe, and lasts longer than eternity. But it is one thing to know intellectually those dimensions of God’s love. It is quite something else to know what that means in your life, today. To experience it for yourself. To know what God’s love means for you, whoever you are, however old or young, whatever position in life, wherever you happen to be, and whatever other people think of you.
God’s love for you is so great that he sent his only Son to die on a cross for you. Do you know that? And what about your family and your friends, do they all know that too?
I think all of us know people somehow or other who are not aware of how much God loves them. Some people are desperately searching for love, from somewhere they do not know where. If only they knew how much God loves them. Some people give the appearance in life that they are made of Teflon, and they have no need for anything – all is good in their lives, why would they want to be bothered about God? Yet, if only they knew how much God loves them, their lives might be even better and more fulfilling.
It is a sad truth that fewer people nowadays know about Jesus dying on the cross, or if they know about that, they do not know that he rose to life again on the third day. Or if they have heard of all that, they do not realise that it is of personal significance for them. Changes in our society, and in the ways schools do not routinely have collective assemblies in the same way they used to, are in part responsible.
That all means our responsibility to tell others about the extent to which God loves them is even greater. But we are not alone in this task.
The church has a wonderful free gift available on the evening of Saturday May 14th in Liverpool. Franklyn Graham (eldest son of Billy Graham) will be preaching the Gospel at an event at King’s Dock. We have a coach booked to take you there – and back! – for free. It will be leaving from outside the church at 5.30pm on 14th May. Do plan to be on that coach – and invite someone to come with you!
Who will you be inviting? Pray about that. Pray first for God to give you the name of someone who needs to know how much he loves them. Then pray for God to give you the opportunity to mention this event to them. Then, invite them! Until you step out in faith and invite someone, you wont know how they will react, will you? Who knows – if God has laid their name on our heart, maybe unknown to you, he has also been working in that person’s heart too!
Tina Upton