Oh What a Love
Next to God's Word, I think one of the best books I have read on the growth and health of our faith is Trusting God by Jerry Bridges. Jerry shows us from God’s Word that no matter what we experience in this life, we can wholeheartedly trust the sovereign, wise, and unfailing love of God. This past month, our Men's D-Groups and Women's Flourish groups read two chapters about this love in Bridges’ book. Let me quote a powerful truth Jerry shared about God’s love from God’s Word: “If God loved me enough to give His Son to die for me when I was His enemy, surely He loves me enough to care for me now that I am His child. Having loved me to the ultimate extent at the Cross, He cannot possibly fail to love me in my time of adversity. Having given such a priceless gift as His Son, surely He will also give all else that is consistent with His glory and my good.” WOW, what a profound and life-empowering truth to contemplate.
This truth about God’s love reminded me of a hymn we used to sing at church when I was growing up. It is called “The Love of God.” It was written by F.M. Lehman, a German-born pastor, hymn writer, and publisher who immigrated to the United States when he was four years old. He and his daughter, Claudia Lehman Mays introduced this song August 15, 1917, and it became one of the great songs of the 20th Century and was published in hundreds of hymnals and translated into many languages.
Read the words of this great hymn:
Verse 1: The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell. The guilty soul, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win; His erring child He reconciled and pardoned from his sin.
Chorus: O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forevermore endure the saints’ and angels’ song.
Verse 2: When hoary time shall pass away, ond earthly thrones and kingdoms fall; when men who here refuse to bow, on rocks and hills and mountains call; God’s love, so sure, shall still endure, all measureless and strong; redeeming grace to Adam’s race the saints’ and angels’ song.
Chorus: O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forevermore endure the saints’ and angels’ song.
Verse 3: 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 (this final stanza comes from an older poem attributed to Meir ben Isaac Nehoral [11th Century]. The lines appeared in a Jewish liturgical poem long before Lehman used them)
One more longer quote from Jerry Bridges about our experience with God’s love: “It may seem cold and even unspiritual to seek to reason through the truths of God’s love in times of heartache, pain, and disappointments. But it is neither cold nor unspiritual. Paul himself, in one of the most ecstatic passages of Scripture, used a form of reason—an argument from the greater to the lesser—when he said, ‘He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will he not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). Paul reasoned that if God loved us so much to give us the greatest conceivable gift, then surely He will not withhold any lesser blessing from us. Or to restate this truth in a way more applicable to our present theme: If God’s love was sufficient for my greatest need, my eternal salvation, surely it is sufficient for my lesser needs, the adversities I encounter in this life.”
No wonder the apostle John said, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are” (1 John 3:1).
Bask in His love. Trust His love. Listen to that old hymn “The Love of God” (Selah)
Pastor Jeff
Foundational Faith Statement 28. What is faith in Jesus Christ? Faith in Jesus Christ is acknowledging the truth of everything that God has revealed in His Word, trusting in Him, and receiving and resting on Him alone for salvation as He has offered to us in the gospel (Galatians 2:20).