Devotional Thought of the Day:
¹⁹  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.  Ephesians 3:19 (NLT2)

“‘God loves you’—isn’t that the most well-worn of clichés? It’s just standard filler for the laziest, most obvious and repetitive homilies. Smile. Yawn. Everybody knows that by now, at least everybody who has ever been in a church or read a Bible.
No. Exactly the opposite. It is not familiar. It is shattering. It changes everything. And most Christians do not realize it.”

Right now on Wednesday evenings I am teaching through the Book of Revelation. It is an amazing book of the Bible, but so misunderstood.  Some think it is like a mystery or a riddle that we have to figure out who the characters are. Others think that it is a prophetic calendar, that we have to determine how this is the time it is describing. Who is the beast? What is the mark of the beast? who is this who is that? Is the pandemic a sign there, what about the racial tension?

Amid all the questions, all the theories, all the guess, and hype there are two things the Revelation really does teach us. No, make that three.

1. Jesus is the LORD, He is, along with the Father and Spirit, God who is worshipped, and will be worshipped by all of creation.

2. Jesus is with us in the midst of life. Life may seem broken beyond repair, it may seem oppressed and anxiety-laden by external events, or the effect of sin. Jesus is there to save us.

3. God loves us. Not in a simplistic way that has no effect on us, but in an intimate way, where He cares for us, bringing healing and peace to our brokenness.  This is what the Apostle Paul desires so much that the church experience, for we cannot understand it. It is too deep, too wonderful to be able to describe it.

Those in His presence fall in awe, with all creation they praise Him, thanking Him, in awe of His care.

In the midst of trials, we need to see this, in the midst of isolation, we need to realize He is there, in the midst of being knocked down and shattered by the world, or by our own sin, we need to experience this love of God, and that He is there with each one of us.

God loves you…. He, the Lord, is with You.

Think about that!

and rejoice….

Peter Kreeft, The God Who Loves You (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 11.