Reflections of the Beach: The Vastness of God's Love

 

Reflections at the Beach

Week One

"The Vastness of God's Love"

Focus Passage: Ephesians Chapter Three

Focus Verse: Ephesians 3:18-19

Bible Reading: Acts 18-24

      It seems ironic that I am writing a devotional reflecting on God's message found at the beach as the thermometer reads 30 degrees outside and it's calling for sleet and snow this afternoon.  I am literally counting down the days until Spring (53 days, 18 hours, and 10 minutes to be exact).  But in the midst of the cold, I think we all could benefit from thinking about some warmer weather.  

      My family and I love the warm weather and our favorite place to enjoy the warm weather is Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  We fell in love with that tiny little beach town years ago.  Loving the beach is an oddity for me.  I used to hate traveling to the beach as a child.  My family would sit on the beach from sun up until sundown.  I would get bored (the joys of being an only child), sunburnt, and sand would get into my shorts.  But now as an adult, I love the beach.  I often take my Bible down to the shoreline and enjoy a few moments reflecting on how the beach illustrates Bible truth.  On one particular morning, I sat watching the waves coming in.  The ocean has always amazed me.  It is so vast.  The ocean covers 71% of the earth's surface.  From where I sat to the next shoreline in Europe was almost 5000 miles away!  The ocean is almost immeasurable in its vastness, no man can estimate its sum or value.

      But the ocean is not the only thing that cannot be measured.  Paul wrote in Ephesians 3:18-19 "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."  Paul challenges us as Christians to attempt to measure God's love, to try to comprehend how much God loves you.  His love is so great that it surpasses all our knowledge.  We could dwell on the inestimable value of God's love for the rest of our days and never scratch the surface.  We might never be able to fully comprehend the vastness of God's great love for us but we can apprehend it for ourselves.  There is a difference between those two simple words: One means to understand (which we will never be able to measure God's love for us as sinners) but the other means to receive something as our own.  While we can not fully grasp the depth of God's love for us, we can indeed GRASP HIS LOVE.  We are so loved by God that the world's greatest computer cannot calculate the sum, but we can rest in His love knowing that it was for us in which Christ was sent to die (John 3:16).

Reflections on the Road

      The final stanza of 'The Love of God' goes "

1. Could we with ink the ocean fill,
   And were the skies of parchment made,
   Were every stalk on earth a quill,
   And every man a scribe by trade;
   To write the love of God above
   Would drain the ocean dry;
   Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
   Though stretched from sky to sky.
2.       Take some time this week and reflect on how much God loves you.  Write down one piece of evidence each day this week in which God showcases His great love.