August 16, 2020

You are loved, more than you know.

I often close my letters with these words. They remind us of what we are prone to forget: in Jesus we are loved to the skies.

The Bible tells us that though we are far more sinful than we ever dared realize, in Jesus we are far more loved than we ever dared hope. Christian identity is therefore one of both humility and courage. We are humbled, because we know our sins are so deep that Christ had to die for us. Our lives are therefore filled with confession, repentance, and brokenness before our holy God. At the same time, because Christ chose to lay down His life on our behalf, we know we are loved beyond imagining. That gives us courage, because we know that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So our lives are filled with grace, peace, gratitude, and security in our loving God. It is humble courage, or said another way, courageous humility.

I don’t know about you, but I tend to forget how great a love the Father has lavished on us in calling us His children. I so often fail to metabolize God’s love in deep and meaningful ways in my life. So I constantly need to remind myself that in Jesus, you are loved, more than you know. This is one of the things Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:14–19 highlights:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 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.

May this be both our prayer and our experience this week. After all…

You are loved, more than you know!

Pastor Philip