God's Love is Deep and Wide

Happy Wednesday, Everyone. 😊 It is good to be back with you all. 😊 I pray you had a joyful and meaningful Resurrection Day. Ours was quiet, but that is okay – it sure didn’t take away from the Joy that we felt knowing that Jesus had died and resurrected just for us.

One thing I learned while doing the study and preparation for our Holy Week posts is that much of Scripture is connected. It is all inter-related. It is all, bottom line, about Jesus. 

The prophecies of the Old Testament became the reality of the New Testament as Jesus lived, died, and rose again. His suffering and death are the topic of more than one passage in the Old Testament. In fact, over 300 prophecies of Jesus exist in the Old Testament and each one of them was perfectly fulfilled in the Person of Jesus Christ. 

So what does that have to do with these passages for the week which are both found in the New Testament? Well, they both speak of the depth and width of the Love of God. A Love so deep and wide that He sent Jesus to die for us so that we could have eternal life with Him. The fact that Jesus laid down His life for us and for our sins provides further evidence of that Love.

I have always looked for connections – it’s how my brain is wired. For example, did you know that the first promise of a Messiah was in Genesis 3:15 and John 3:16 speaks to the fulfillment of that promise? Psalm 22 finds its way into the crucifixion story. And Isaiah’s many prophecies of the suffering servant are all fulfilled in Jesus.

As Christians, I think we sometimes want to throw out the Old Testament because it’s not relevant to us and to our lives in the 21^st Century. But if we do that, we are missing half the story. The story of God’s Love as shown to the Israelites; the Passover, which foreshadowed Jesus sacrificial death for our sin; Jonah who spent three days and nights in the belly of a big fish; the list goes on.

All of the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, show us the immensity of God’s Love for us and all people. If we look at the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus it is hard to not make note of how it is all connected and inter-related.

It is all, in fact, part of the greatest Love Story every written. And, for us, the Joy exists in the fact that deep and wide Love of God was lived out for us so that He could live in us so that we could show that same love to the world.

It’s beautiful, don’t you think, to see how much we have in common with everyone in Scripture? I’m going to keep on looking for connections – so you might hear about this again in the future. 😊 

Blessings to us all as we go about the work of being Resurrection people and spreading the depth and width of the Love of God everywhere and to everyone.

Blessings and Love, 😊 Ceri