“The Love of God” – Words and Music Frederick Lehman (1868-1953)
Tune: LOVE OF GOD
This warhorse among gospel songs has some great metaphors about oceans being inkwells incapable of holding enough ink to write the magnitude of God’s love… even on parchment as wide as the skies.
However, before we become overwhelmed by the flowery descriptive language, we need to notice this recurring line in each refrain which describes so well the simple truth about the love of God as revealed in his ever-loving Son:
• Rich - having or supplying a large amount of something that is wanted or needed
• Pure – undefiled, without ulterior motive, unmixed with anything inconsistent with itself
• Measureless – without edges, boundless, can’t be limited by width, depth or height
• Strong – exhibiting no weakness, able to support great weight, able to withstand, indestructible
• Enduring – absolutely continuous, persistent, long-lasting… in this case, everlasting.
These are powerful expressions of this so often talked about attribute of God… worth noticing, worth examining, worth replicating.
from Ephesians 3:16-20
I pray that you may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and that you may know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.
From the Gaither Homecoming
(I’ve never really figured out how “the guilty pair” got included in the first stanza of this hymn, but I do know this hymn doesn’t work well as a wedding song!)
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