The
Marianas Trench, located several hundred miles off the coast of Guam, is the
deepest place in the ocean—7 miles down! At that depth if Mount Everest, were
placed at this location it would be covered by over one mile of water! On
January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard and Donald Walsh climbed into a submersible
vessel and were lowered into the cold, lonely darkness. Their descent into the
deep, which set the world record, has never been repeated. The water pressure
at the bottom of the trench is 15,931 pounds per square inch. Yet amazingly, there
is life surviving despite the pressure and the darkness.[1]
It's
hard to fathom just how deep the Marianas Trench is. But much more difficult to
comprehend is the love of God—it’s infinite—beyond measure. This is what Paul
was trying to wrap his mind around in Ephesians 3:17-19, “so that Christ may
dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length
and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
This
is a love that is wide enough to embrace the world; a love which is long enough
to last forever; a love that is high enough to take sinners to heaven and deep
enough to take Christ to the very depths to reach the lowest prodigal. You can
go left or right, forward or backward, or up or down as far as you can, and you
still haven’t explored all that there is to know of Christ’s great love. Max
Lucado adds the insightful thoughts:
“We
are, incredibly, the body of Christ. And though we may not act like our Father,
there is no greater truth than this: We are his. Unalterably. He loves us.
Undyingly. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ (Rom.
8:38- 39). Had God not said those words, I would be a fool to write them. But
since he did, I’m a fool not to believe them. But how difficult to embrace this
truth. You think you’ve committed an act which places you outside his love. A
treason. A betrayal. An aborted promise. You think, he would love you more if
you hadn’t done it, right? You think he would love you more if you did more,
right? You think if you were better, his love would be deeper, right? Wrong.
Wrong. Wrong. His love is not human. His love is not normal. His love sees your
sin and loves you still. Does he approve of your error? No. Do you need to
repent? Yes. But do you repent for his sake or yours? Yours. His ego needs no
apology. His love needs no bolstering. And he could not love you more than he
does right now.”[2]
Brennan
Manning tells the story of when he was a priest in Ireland on a walking tour in
route to a rural parish. He saw an old peasant kneeling by the side of the
road, praying. Impressed, he said to the
man, “You must be very close to God.”
The peasant looked up from his prayers, thought for a moment, and then
smiled, “Yes, he’s very fond of me.”[3] Look at the cross. See the
nails, the blood, the Savior? God is very fond of you.
No comments:
Post a Comment