“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,”
Ephesians 3:17-18 (NIVUK)
What is it to experience the flood? It is not the biblical flood of Noah’s day that I refer to but the deluge of Christs undeserved unfailing love that drenches us when we find ourselves in a desolate place of spiritual bankruptcy or despair at our own imperfectness. Whether under an umbrella of shame, guilt or fear from sin or having left Christ’s side for our own path in foreign lands of the heart that promise much but deliver little but emptiness, we may feel that we have spent the last of Jesus’ patience, grace and affection towards us, but nothing could be further from the truth. For what greets us in such dark and difficult moments is the fullness of the heart of God in Christ: A flood of undeserved affection poured into our hearts to overflowing with the replenishing currency of Christs gracious love and compassion that reminds us once again of the victory that was won at the cross for us.
In this valley of spiritual inadequacy, is a heart that is unashamedly open to and indeed dependent on Christs redeeming compassion. We have nowhere else to turn but to Jesus and as our perfect High Priest interceding before the throne of God, he meets our need time and again (Hebrews 7:26). For greeting us down the road as we turn to him are the loving arms of the Father of the Prodigal child and witnessed there is the transforming of our downcast despair, shame and spiritual poverty into joy as we encounter the stark reality and power of how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ truly is (Ephesians 3:17-18). It is why I believe Jesus began his sermon on the Mount with the words “Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)
We find ourselves being clothed in garments we did not deserve or earn but bestowed by a saviour who is intimately acquainted with us and our pain, sinful habits, negative untrue thoughts. Our love for our saviour grows as we understand with new humility and joy Jesus’ words: “Whoever is forgiven much, loves much.” After all God is not only omnipotent, but Christ the redeemer is the one who chose to take every one of our most deep, shameful, painful, and fearful expressions of broken humanity and bore it himself. That is the depth to which he knows exactly what we walk through. He knows because he bore it for your sake.
This is indeed love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and gave himself for us (1 John 4:10). This, the love of Christ is the flood that washes on the shore of our soul drenching us afresh, reminding us that he alone is worthy of worship and praise. Such divine love never ceases to be the vast endless ocean that it is. Walking in the awareness of the flood of his love leads us on our journey deeper into our acceptance as sons and daughters in the beloved (Ephesians 1:6 NKJV) and that the basis is and will always be founded on the finished, glorious work of Christ, the one who is truly worthy of our praise.
With every resource exhausted
and the extent of brokenness exposed
When self-reliance has reached its end,
there revealed is perfect love unopposed
What had until now seemed but a stream
As our nakedness in Christ is fully clothed
Was in reality a torrent and flood of unfailing love
and grace in full measure, upon our hearts bestowed
© B. Trowbridge 2021
Abba's Dearly Beloved 