My children and I play a game, it’s one of those quirky things that you come up with your kids that becomes part of the daily routine. I’m not sure how it started but one day, after telling Marcus I loved him, he said, “I love you more”, then I say “no, I love you more”, and on, and on it goes. Well, one day my highly competitive, then 4-year old ended the non-stop game of one-up about who loves who the most by exclaiming, “I love you the best…I win!” He was so triumphantly emphatic that I had to laugh and agree he did indeed win!
This fast paced competition of who can get to ‘I Win’ spread to all of my children and is now part of our morning and bedtime rituals. It reminded me of a book I had been reading to my kiddos since they were very small. I actually bought it for our oldest daughter when she was four (she’d now be 25), miraculously it has survived relatively unscathed.
The book is called, “Guess How Much I Love You“, by Sam McBratney. It’s a wonderful story about a father and son Hare. The son keeps telling the father how much he love him. Then the father replies with an even larger illustration of love. The book ends with little nut brown hare telling his father that he loves him “right up to the moon”, as the father tucks his son in to bed he replies, “I love you right up to the moon – and back”.
This is such a great illustration of God’s love for us, one that we often have a very difficult time comprehending.
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
There is no love so deep, so pure and so complete as the love I feel for you. There is no place you could ever run to that I would not find you. There is nothing you can do that could ever cause me to love you less or more than I love you right now.
My love for you is deeper than the sea, wider than the skies and more infinite than space and time. You may turn your back on me, hide your face from me, run from me and fill your life with false images meant to replace me; my love for you will remain and I will wait for you to return.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” Luke 15:20b
Our understanding of God’s love is so limited that we content ourselves with quoting scripture like John 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Not only did God save us from ourselves, He did so while we were still a mess and in a such a way that our salvation could never be taken from us.
Then He wrote to us… yes, He wrote to us. He wrote us love letters. Letters to share His deepest desires for our lives, His great despair at our disobedience, His provision for our restoration and His unfailing commitment to our future in Him.
“What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.” No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:31-39
No matter how much we’ve been shown love, understand love or our expectation of love, it is nothing compared to what God feels for us, expresses toward us and freely gives us. He loves us to eternity and back, the proof…He was willing to leave paradise and sacrifice Himself that we could be restored to Him.
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