GOD’S IMMEASURABLE LOVE
John 3:16-17
By Dewayne Bolton
These are, without doubt, the greatest words ever spoken or written. I say this because they tell the greatest story ever told; they tell of God and His love. There is nothing greater than the love of God, for it is the very embodiment of the one from which it comes. They also tell of what God did to rescue His highest creation from the greatest evil in the world: sin. There is nothing that can deliver from sin but the blood of Jesus. An old familiar hymn says:
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
I want to talk to you about God’s Immeasurable love. One way to understand the immeasurable love of God is to look at the word, immeasurable. It means impossible to measure, vast, limitless, and carries the thought of being incalculable. The central meaning of the word carries the thought of being greater than can be calculated, reckoned, or even imagined. It is as David explains in Psalms 139:7-12. Verse 7 says, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” He goes on and says if I ascend into Heaven, if I make my bed in hell, if I take the wings of the morning, if I say surely the darkness shall fall on me, you are there. What David is saying is there is no place one can go and get away from God. Think about that and let it sink down into your heart.
Just as there is no place a man can go without God being there, so there is no place a man can go without coming face to face with God’s love, for where God is, His love is there also. There is no storm so fierce, no cloud so dark, no valley so deep that God’s love cannot penetrate. Think about that and let it grip your mind and heart, and move you to humble submission at His feet in adoration, and praise his immeasurable love. Let’s look at some characteristics of God’s love.
FIRST IT IS HIGHER THAN ANY MOUNTAIN.
Think of Mt. Everest which is the highest mountain in the world at height of 29,035 feet. Now multiply its height by one hundred trillion then add zeros to that until you have completely exhausted yourself physically, and you haven’t begun to touch the height or depth of God’s love. The Psalmist in Psalms 103:11 says, “FOR AS THE HEAVENS ARE HIGH ABOVE THE EARTH, SO GREAT IS HIS MERCY TOWARD THOSE WHO FEAR HIM.” Mercy is the out flow of love so you might say; God’s love is as high as the heavens are above the earth. The song writer put it this way:
The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell,
It goes beyond the highest star, and reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair bowed down with care
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled, and pardoned from his sin.
The last part of the song says,
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.
O love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong, it shall
For ever more endure the saints and angels song.
That is one glimpse of God’s immeasurable Love.
SECOND: GOD’S IMMEASURABLE LOVE IS INCALCULABLE.
How many of you know calculus and all the other elements of math? I don’t. But here’s the point I want to make, if you were to calculate to the furthest point possible, then again add zeros to it until you are completely exhausted physically, even then you wouldn’t even scratch the Love of God. There is no language, figure, or expressions that can truly calculate or describe the love of God. The only way to begin to comprehend its vastness is to experience it for yourself. The more you experience God’s love, the sweeter and sweeter it grows, and you come to know its greatness.
THIRD: GOD’S IMMEASURABLE LOVE IS UNCONTAINABLE.
The word uncontainable carries the thought of being unable to hold or keep within, restrain, to bottle up or to check the influence of. Doris Day sang a song that illustrates what I want to share with you:
Once I had a secret love that lived within the heart of me
All too soon my secret love became inpatient to be free
So I told a friendly star the way dreamers often do
Just how wonderful you are and why I am so in love with you.
Now I shout it from the highest hills, even told the golden daffodils
At last my heart’s an open door and my secret love’s no secret any more.
That’s the way it is with God’s immeasurable love, it is uncontainable. Once you’ve experienced it you can’t help but tell it, and want to shout it from the highest hill. I don’t know about you, but that puts a shout on my tongue and lips, to sing and shout the praises of one whose love is so vast, so strong, and so amazingly wonderful that it cannot be contained. Peter expressed it well when he told those he stood before, HOW CAN WE BUT TELL OF THE THINGS WE HAVE BOTH SEEN AND HEARD, Acts 4:20.
Then notice the word uncontainable also carries the thought of not checking or holding the influence of God’s love. It would be easier to stop the flow of the Mississippi River above flood stage with a wheel barrel full of corn cobs than to stop the influence of God’s love. Every one of you that read these lines has in one way or another been influenced by God’s love. It is because of God’s immeasurable love that men and women leave the comforts of home to go to the uttermost parts of the world to tell of this marvelous, wonderful, unending, uncontainable love.
There is no wall so thick or high that it cannot penetrate or leap over. There is no jungle so dense and dark that it cannot enter and bring light, hope, and healing. I heard the story of a native man, in another country, who found a leaflet while walking along a jungle trail. He picked it up and had someone in the village read it to him. It was a religious tract on God’s love. He prayed and God forgave his sin, and sometime later he became a native pastor. No one really knows how the tract got there but I can assure you of one thing, that is God’s immeasurable love had a lot to do with it. It penetrated the jungle where this man lived and laid that tract there for him.
God’s immeasurable love is unstoppable as it can go where nothing else can go, and it can do what nothing else can do. The great need of our day is for men, women, boys, and girls to be filled with the love of God so they become a glowing light, lighting up the world around them.
There is no heart so hard that it cannot melt and break to pieces. There is no eye so blind that it cannot see the light of the world, Jesus. There is no soul so bound by sin that His love can’t break sins chains. There is no human being sunk so low in the quagmire of sin that His love cannot reach and lift them out.
LAST THIS IMMEASURABLE LOVE BRINGS HOPE TO THE HOPELESS.
The crippled man at the pool of Bethsaida had hope and showed his hope by trying to be the first in the water after the water was troubled (John 5). The first person who stepped into the water when it became troubled was healed of whatever ailment they had. There is no heart so broken, no life so shattered, but immeasurable love cannot put it back together and bring complete healing. When Jesus came by he asked this man if he wanted to be made whole. When he responded, “YES, but there is no man to help me into the pool.” Jesus healed him.
Have you experienced God’s immeasurable love? If not, why not pray a simple, honest prayer, and invite Jesus to come into your heart. Then you will begin to experience God’s immeasurable love.
Dewayne Bolton has retired from 40 years of pastoral ministry. God is still giving him messages, so he is putting them on paper.
If you enjoy these, let him know. Also, feel free to send him prayer requests.
If you don’t want to receive these messages, please let him know. E-mail: dewaynebolton305@gmail.com
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