POWER TO KNOW GOD'S LOVE
By Suzanne Benner

"Jesus loves me, this I know," is a startling truth that should affect our lives profoundly. Do you know that Jesus loves you? It's true even if you don't feel it. How can you know for sure? "Because the bible tells me so."

John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." God does not see you as you see yourself, whether it's addicted, co-dependent, obsessive or simply unworthy of His love. God sees you as His beloved child. "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" (1 John 3:1).

Now it is easy to say God loves you; you have probably heard it many times before. Yet how can you and I make it real in our lives, so real that it changes who we are and how we see things? We can't. The good news is God can. God has the power to change how we think, thus changing who we are. We can begin to seek His power through prayer.

One of the best ways I've found to learn how to pray is to say the prayers written for us in the Bible. I think my favourite prayer is Paul's prayer for the Christians in Ephesus, in Ephesians 3:14-21.

Paul prays for them to receive power, "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith". We also need power to understand the love of Christ. On our own it is impossible to comprehend how much God loves us. Paul writes, "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

How wide is God's love? Wide enough to reach the homosexual, the prostitute, the abuser, the abused, the poor, the rich and wider still.

How long is God's love? Longer than our rebellion; longer than our running and hiding from Him; longer than our apathy.

How deep is God's love? Deeper than the wounds our hearts have felt, that no one else understands; deeper than our feelings of unworthiness; deeper than our insecurities, our fears.

How high is God's love? This is the really wonderful part: higher than our intellect can comprehend, higher than our experience has felt.

If I understood how God loves me, would I seek human love the way I do now? Would I yearn for the approval of my parents, my husband, my children, or my friends? Would I fill my life with food or possessions or trinkets of my success? Paul says that Christ's love can "fill us to the measure of all the fullness of God". When I am full of God, I lack nothing; I am freed from the needs and habits that enslave me. When I am full of God, I will yearn for Him alone.

~ Dear God, I pray for myself and for women everywhere, that we would have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and that we would know this love that surpasses knowledge - that we would be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Related Links

Defining Love in Today's World
http://www.christianwomentoday.com/womenmen/defininglove.html

About the Author

Suzanne Benner lives in Calgary with her husband and three school-aged children. She leads a small group Bible study in her local church and is passionate about Scripture memorization.