A Love Beyond Our Grasp!

          Do you ever wonder why? An unknown author said, "Tell a man there’s 400 billion stars in the sky and he’ll believe you, but tell him a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it. Why? Why is it called a hamburger when it’s made out of beef? Why do you put suits in garment bags and put garments in suitcases? Why are there five syllables in the word ‘monosyllabic? Why do you drive on a parkway and park in a driveway? Why are they called departments when they’re stuck together?" The "why" questions in life go on and on. The examples just quoted are lightweight and entertaining, but there are questions in life that create deep wonder in the human heart and stir the human soul. Long ago the writer of Psalm 139, (believed to be King David by many Bible students), thought about God’s constant presence with him. As he contemplated God’s presence and total and complete knowledge of every detail of his life – from the words that he spoke to the steps that he took, he was overcome with the wonder of it all and exclaimed in verse 6, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it." The powerful sense of wonder toward God and His greatness led David not to doubt and debate but to praise and worship! Things he couldn’t totally grasp about the Almighty served to strengthen his faith and move him to worship and serve the Creator as he recognized God’s greatness and his own smallness and insignificance in comparison. The poet Robert Browning got near to the idea we see in David’s words when he wrote, in his dramatic monologue poem, "Andrea del Sarto" (published in 1855), "Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?" The exact meaning of Browning’s statement in the poem is debated, but the idea seems to be that our imagination often exceeds our total understanding. Does your reach ever exceed your grasp?

                 The apostle Paul reminds us in Ephesians 3:17-19 that a total understanding of Christ’s love for us is beyond our grasp, even as he directs us to keep reaching for it! The passage reads as follows – "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; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." Did you catch it? Paul directs us to comprehend and know something which he admits is so wide and long and deep and high that it "passes knowledge" or the English Standard Version says "surpasses knowledge." The love of God shown to us through His Son is just too vast and immense and big for human beings to totally grasp and master and own it! We can, and we should, and we must reach for a deeper understanding. The same apostle wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:14a that "the love of Christ compels us" – and noted that since Jesus died and rose again for us, we should live for Him. Jesus demonstrated His great love for us at the cross (Romans 5:8). That demonstration moved Isaac Watts to write, "Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all" (3^rd verse When I Survey the Wondrous Cross). A total grasp of God’s love for us is beyond our reach. But in reaching for it we grow in our love for Him. That’s when serving Jesus becomes a joy. Think about it.

– Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

– Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

The Lord," said the apostle Peter 2,000 years ago in a famous verse of Scripture, "is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). The English Standard Version says God is "patient toward you." Unlike most of us, God is in no hurry! In the context surrounding this familiar verse Peter makes clear what God is in no hurry to do – He is no hurry to bring judgment against people who have not repented, thus consigning them to hell. God would urge all who are outside His will and separated from Him by sin, to hurry up and repent, that is, turn their lives around and obey His will. There is a story about a preacher who was known for his poise under pressure. One day a close friend saw him pacing back and forth, pondering a problem. "What’s the trouble?" the friend asked. The preacher replied, "The trouble is I’m in a hurry, but God isn’t!" God is not in a hurry. We truly live in a hurried world today where many people (and plenty of professed Christians among them) are too busy to take time to be holy. We have fast cars, fast phones, fast computers, and fast internet service. We drive fast and live fast lives. We want fast food – whether at McDonald’s or at church (as in fast, short sermons). We like fast service, whether in line at the bank, the grocery store, the local Walmart, the doctor’s office, or waiting to board a plane! But as someone noted, "Everyone who lined up 30 minutes early to board the plane is gonna be so mad when we all land at the same time." Have you ever been passed on the highway at a break-neck pace by some speed-demon who is on his / her way to who knows where? They fly by you until, just a few seconds later, you pull up behind them at a stop sign or traffic light turned red! In today’s sprint-paced world of smartphones, on- demand video, next or even same-day delivery, microwaveable meals, and instant-everything, we are very impatient with the notion of waiting and being patient! Why wait? We want patience – and we want it now! The result is a hyper-impatient culture where millions of people have a "short-fuse."

We may be in a hurry, but God is not. Caution: there is a constant temptation to re-create God in our own image. Since we are in a hurry and since we are impatient and just can’t hardly stand to wait on anything or anybody these days, we can easily come to mistake God’s (seeming) slowness at making good on His promises as slackness and inability to do so. The verse quoted above at 2 Peter 3:9 is in a context where some in the first century were doubting God is really coming in a "day of judgment" to punish the ungodly (verse 7). But Peter warns God’s people not to mistake and misinterpret God’s long delay in coming in judgment as meaning He has reneged on His long-standing promise to do just that. Some may demand that God perform on their own self-devised timetable. But Peter will have none of it. When it comes to judgment, God is the unhurried God. He is in no eager rush to condemn lost people to hell. In love and compassion and concern He waits...and waits...and waits for lost people to repent. But He won’t wait forever, for "the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night" (verse 10). Are you away from God? He patiently waits on you to come. Why not hurry to Him now? Think about it.

       – Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

Unbalanced Christians!

             
Losing your balance can be dangerous. Even deadly. It was for Karl Wallenda. You may have heard of Karl. Beginning at 6 years old, he walked on high-wires and rode cycles across tightropes high in the air. He and his dare-devil family, the Flying Wallendas, gained international fame for their exciting but dangerous shows. After scores of years and hundreds of successful, jaw-dropping performances, on March 22, 1978, the 73 year-old Wallenda attempted to walk across a high wire strung between the two towers of the Condado Plazo Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Part-way across the wire Wallenda lost his balance. He teetered on the wire for several heart-rending seconds. Then, tragically, via live TV, millions were horrified when he fell off the wire and plunged 10 stories down to his death. Becoming unbalanced can lead to catastrophe if you walk on a tight rope.



Many passages in the Bible teach that balance matters for God’s people. Let us focus especially on Ephesians 4:15 where the apostle Paul penned these words: ^"but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ." Anyone with even a superficial knowledge of the Bible knows that these two themes – truth and love – take up a major amount of ink and space in God’s word. Scripture frequently teaches us to love. Jesus taught that to love our neighbors as ourselves is second only to our duty to love God with all our heart, soul and mind (Matthew 22:37-40). John the apostle declared, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God ... He who does not love does not know God, for God is love" (1 John 4:7-8). The apostle Paul said that though we do all kinds of powerful religious things, but have not love, "it profits me nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Jesus taught, "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). This could go on and on, but balance demands we recall the other element in Paul’s statement above at Ephesians 4:15. That verse tells us how to speak – "in love" – but we are also told what to speak – "the truth." We don’t have to guess what "truth" he is referring to in that verse. It is "the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation" Paul spoke about earlier at Ephesians 1:13. It is the truth [that is] in Jesus" (Ephesians 4:21). In the inspired words of Galatians 2:5b it is "the truth of the gospel." At Colossians 1:5b it is identified as "the word of the truth of the gospel." Jesus spoke about this same truth when He declared in John 8:32, "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." The Lord laid it out plainly in John 17:17 where, as part of a prayer for His apostles the night before He died, He asked the Father, "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth." Surely this is the truth referred to in Proverbs 23:23 where we are admonished, "Buy the truth, and sell it not." The apostle Paul predicted in 2 Timothy 4:4 some "will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables." Truth and love – God speaks clearly about the imperative nature of both. Some Christians, churches, and preachers are so focused on truth they forget about love, and some are so in love with love, they forget about truth. The corrrect approach is to always speak the truth, but speak it in love. Otherwise we may become unbalanced and fall to our spiritual death. 

-- Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN