Here Is Love, Vast As The Ocean

“What manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.”
I John 3:1 (KJV)

“Here is Love, Vast as an Ocean” goes the song. Can you imagine if love was a solid substance like water? You could swim in it and submerge yourself in it. It could wash over you and rinse away the pain of loneliness, dissolve the grime of anger or scrub off the bitterness of hatred. You could drink it in or keep it in a container and take a sip whenever you were ‘thirsty’ for love. You could trade it for goods, or perhaps bottle and sell it.

But love is intangible-you can’t feel it, taste it, see it, hear it or smell it. Like atheists, you could even claim it doesn’t exist! Yet, love is one of the most powerful forces on earth. It is a prime motivation for spending our resources, whether for a haircut or buying a house. It makes distasteful tasks like changing a baby’s nappy bearable, and causes people to do the most illogical and unreasonable things, from painting their face bright blue, to going to Timbuktu as was sung in the musical, Oliver.

You can’t force anyone to love you, nor can you buy love, but we owe it to God, ourselves and each other to have and express love in all we say and do. Romans 13:8 says, “Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.”

True love expresses only good and not evil. Jesus commands us to “love one another, as I have loved you….By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples”, John 13:34 & 35. Romans 5:8 tells us that “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”, and in I John 3:1 we see, “what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God”. I have two sons, and I would rather be tortured and killed myself, than have it happen to them, and yet we read in John 3:16 that, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have Everlasting Life.” What a sacrifice, and all because of Love: Vast as the Ocean!

 Prayer
Thank you, Father in Heaven, that through your great sacrifice of love we can have Everlasting Life. Thank you for your love that flows in and through us out to the world. Give us the living water of Jesus’ love that we can drink and never thirst again.
Amen

Study by Nancy Silcox