Wherefore Art Thou, Jesus? Part XII.

“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.” Ephesians 3:14-19

Way back in 1958 (ever so slightly before my time!) an excellent little pop song was released, inspired by the words written on the father of the song-writer’s tombstone: “To know him is to love him”.

When it comes to our knowing God to know Him is to love Him, but it would be even truer to say that to know God is to be loved by Him.

“He who is filled with love is filled with God Himself.” Augustine of Hippo.

What is your own experience and knowledge of God’s love? John Owen makes a very challenging statement in his excellent book, ‘Communion With God’: “Having a loving relationship with the Father is very much neglected by Christians.”

Hang on. Can this really be true? Can it be true that Christians can neglect having a loving relationship with the God who is love?

Wouldn’t that also mean that Christians, then, are neglecting to have a relationship with God at all, because to know God is to be loved by Him and to know that love for yourself?

Even as I’m writing this I am hoping that this is a thought that remains with me. It is something that needs praying about, passionately and earnestly.

As we consider what the Apostle Paul is praying for Christians to experience in Ephesians 3:17-19 especially, it can perhaps be illustrated as follows:

You have been specially selected by the Queen to go and live with her at Buckingham Palace from now on (very likely I know!). So off you trot with all your suitcases to Buckingham Palace, and as the Queen greets you at the door she says, “Mi casa, su casa” – “My home is your home”!

But as you begin to actually stay there you feel so intimidated and unworthy of staying that you spend all of your time in your (admittedly very nice) bedroom, daring to come out only when called for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

After a few days, while sitting quietly upon your bed, you hear a knock on your bedroom door. You open it only to find the Queen standing before you! “What’s wrong?” she asks, “Why are you just staying in your room? I want you to enjoy the whole of this palace – from the east part to the west, from the north part to the south!”

You see, there is so much of God’s love to experience and Paul is praying for Christians to experience this love in all its fullness, from its heights to its depths, from its widths to its lengths.

Do you know the love of God in such an abundant way? Lets hear what John Bunyan has to say about this: “Why then do not Christians devote themselves to the meditation of this so heavenly, so goodly, so sweet, and so comfortable a thing, that yieldeth such advantage to the soul? The reason is, these things are talked of, but not believed.”

Lets now consider what he’s saying by asking ourselves the question: do I believe that it is possible for me to experience God’s love in such a full and abundant way – not that it is hypothetically possible for a Christian, but that it is possible for me?

“We ought not to limit God where He has not limited Himself,” says Jonathan Edwards, and God desires for us to know His love in all of its widths and lengths and depths and heights!

What does it actually mean, then, to experience God’s love in this powerful way?

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones tells of an excellent illustration that first came from the mouth/pen of the Puritan Thomas Goodwin:

A father and child are walking down the road, hand in hand. The father has told the child that he loves him, and the child knows this and believes it, and is certain of that love.

But the father, suddenly, by impulse, picks up the child, kisses him on the forehead, and squeezes him as tightly as can be, in a long, loving embrace.

The child knew that the father loved him, but then this big hug, this loving embrace, this great out-pouring of love, this special, additional manifestation of the father’s love made that love more real, more certain and more assured than it had even been before.

That is what its like to experience the love of God – that is what its like to experience the God who is love. It is a love that we find in Jesus Christ, for in Him we find all the love of God (Romans 8:39).

It is right for us to seek that love – to seek God to both be with Him and to be loved by Him; desiring that He will pick us up in His arms in such a loving embrace!

I realise that I have used quite a lot of quotes in this section – quotes from divines vastly wiser and more experienced in God’s love than I am, I am sure.

I do know this, however, and write from experience: that to know God is to be loved by Him. It is good for us to desire to know Him better and to experience His love more than we already have. Its what our love for Him ought naturally to be raising up within us.

But do we believe that this love of God can be experienced in such great abundance enough that we are truly seeking after it enough?

“How priceless is Your unfailing love, O God!

People take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.” Psalm 36:7