Behold His love

The One We Love

 There is no greater glory

No more beautiful thing

No more majestic appearance

Or commanding a King

Than the One we love

You are the One we love

Whether spinning the heavenlies

Whether crafting our hearts

Your Word is potent in power

It will perform all You ask

You are the One we love

You are the One we love

There’s no greater love than Yours

Oh we will sing, oh we will sing 

To the glory of Your Name  

Oh we will sing, oh we will sing

There is no deeper mystery

Than when the Word became flesh

That You would lay down Your glory

To live and die in our midst

You are the One we love

You are the One we love

As we look in Your eyes

Strongholds desert us

One word from Your mouth

Heaven is summoned

This promise of joy

Will never be stolen

To know You, our God

Our treasure, our portion

Devotional

The love of the Lord is steadfast. If one were to look at the Psalms and find every mention of the love of the Lord therein, one would find His love overwhelmingly referred to as “steadfast”. 

Of all the plethora of mentions of His steadfast love throughout Scripture, one mention comes from a most unexpected place: from the lips of a minor prophet in the stomach of a whale. 

Jonah cried out to God, “out of the belly of Sheol” he called, and the Lord heard Him. And while there, almost as if in a moment of clarity, Jonah realises the true treasure that is the steadfast love of the Lord (Jonah 2:6-9). 

He almost seems to lament on behalf of those who do not know, who choose – foolishly – to pursue “vain” idols instead of the steadfast love of the Lord. In that moment, the only salvation Jonah would or could ever know, was this unparalleled love. 

For, idols, he knew, could not help him. His own merits, whatever they may be, were useless to him within that fish. His only hope was to call out to God and, wonderfully, God heard him. God rescued Him. It is in that moment that Jonah learns the value of God’s love. It could no longer be a distant or abstract concept to him. It didn’t consist of legal recitations or moral rectitude. Jonah learnt what made God’s love different to any other: It is steadfast. 

It is this steadfast love we see fully displayed on the cross of Christ. 

Still more does the mystery of His love increase when we consider our unworthiness to receive it. We stood to receive judgment, and rightfully so – the weight of our sin was so great that only the entirely righteous sacrifice of the divine Son of God could atone for it (Romans 5:7-8). 

His love is steadfast. It endures far beyond any other conceivable thing. It is worth treasuring above all else – above all idols. This is why, as Jonah triumphantly ends his prayer, he can confidently say: “Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

Reflections

1. We all have talents and skills, maybe even possessions, that often put us in good stead to do or achieve something. We tend to call this doing something “in our own strength”. Considering times you may have approached situations in this manner yourself, explain why our own strength is insufficient to save us? 
2. One could easily conceive of Jonah’s position as a hopeless one. How does the steadfast love of the Lord give us hope?
3. It is often said that, in order to identify the idols in our lives, all we have to do is follow where our energy, focus, and our resources, go. Identify some of the idols in your own life. Why would trusting in those idols be “vain” (useless)?