TITLE: Love that Surpasses Knowledge* By Betsy Markman 12/05/05 |
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(Edited 8/17/06)
Love that Surpasses Knowledge*
"Look at what you just did! That’s the last straw. How could God possibly love you?" The old familiar doubt slithers its way into my soul.
“God says He loves me,” I respond with a sigh. “That should be enough for me.” My inner voice sounds weary. I’ve fought this battle many times.
"Yes, but you still doubt, don’t you?" The Accuser switches tactics. "Doubting God is the same as calling Him a liar. That’s bad enough all by itself to make Him turn His back on you. It’s exactly what you deserve!"
I know I shouldn’t let Satan’s lies get under my skin, but sometimes I do. Sometimes the voice of the enemy sounds more real to me than the gentle words of my Savior. That’s because sin is more than just a decision on my part. It’s more than willful disobedience. Sin is a cancer that I was born with. It blinds my spiritual eyes and plugs my spiritual ears. It warps everything I am and everything I do. This basic sinfulness, this “depravity,” is the source from which all of my individual sins flow. Like the old saying goes, I’m not a sinner because I sin. I sin because I’m a sinner. It’s what I do.
God’s holy eyes probe all the way down into the twistedness of my soul. And yet He loves me anyway.
I know that because I know that Christ didn’t die for a checklist of individual sins. He died for me, a blind, deaf, sin-cancer suffering creature. He entered Satan’s marketplace, Death, and purchased my depraved heart, knowing full well what sorts of sin would erupt from it.
If Christ faced the most hideous fiends of Hell in order to purchase a fountain of wickedness, can its flow frighten Him away? Having conquered Death and Hades, will the Lion of Judah be confounded by my iniquities? Did the Omnipotent One take on more than He could handle when He chose me?
Which of my sins could possibly be greater than God’s love?
The enemy senses the warmth filling my heart, and he creeps away with a hiss of venomous hatred. He’ll come back again, I know.
When he does, he’ll find me resting in God’s arms.
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*Eph. 3:17-19
“… And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge…”
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