Daily Devotion 03 July 2020

Create a peaceful space to pause, and allow yourself to feel God’s presence alongside you, as near to you as your own breath. In following the reflection below, as a church we will draw closer to God and to one another as we grow in faith and deepen our sense of belonging to God.

Ephesians 3: 14-19 ‘God’s Inescapable Love’

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. 16 I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Reading these familiar, wonderful words, I was reminded of those other precious words in the Psalms:

Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
(Psalm 139:7-10)

How many of the stories Jesus told express the divine love for all who needed it – whether or not they recognised that need. A woman searching for a lost piece of silver, a shepherd for a wandering sheep. A father out running towards a returning prodigal. The words Jesus spoke were reinforced in way he lived. He was available for those sick in mind or body, rich and poor, young or old. He had time for all whom he met as he travelled around, including those whom respectable society dismissed as worthless. Beggars and tax collectors, women, children, foreigners. No one who needed him was rejected by him, they all found a welcome in his presence.

And after all his words, and all he did, Jesus died on a cross with arms outstretched – an embrace reaching out in forgiveness not only for those present on that first Good Friday, but available for everyone in every time and place.

The love of God is inescapable. At some point everyone will be confronted with it. We cannot know how or when, but divine love will never be content until all are made aware that they were created by, and for love. God’s mercy is extended to all. Those of generations past, and those yet to come. We can entrust our lives, and the lives of those whom we hold dear, to that all-embracing loving kindness and care, confident that in God’s providence all shall be well.

Prayer:

The words from Ephesians which opened this devotion, close us with a prayer of blessing:

Now to him who by the power at work within us
is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine,
to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
(Ephesians 3:20-21)

Reflection & Prayer © 2020 Hazel Blake.
Images © ROOTS for Churches Ltd www.rootsontheweb.com.

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