1 John 3:1
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
What words could you use to describe God’s love for us? Awe-inspiring… amazing… breathtaking… wonderful... mind-blowing. Or as the song says, “rich and pure…measureless and strong!” How about crazy?
David Powlison, author of the book Seeing with New Eyes writes,
God’s love is active. He decided to love you when He could have justly condemned you. He’s involved. He’s merciful, not simply tolerant. He hates sin, yet pursues sinners by name. God is so committed to forgiving and changing you that He sent Jesus to die for you. He welcomes the poor in spirit with a shout and a feast. God is vastly patient and relentlessly persevering as He intrudes into your life. God’s love actively does you good. His love is full of blood, sweat, tears, and cries. He suffered for you. He fights for you, defending the afflicted. He fights with you pursuing you in powerful tenderness so that He can change you.
God’s love for us really is a crazy love, and it is so beautifully conveyed in the words of our song this week.
Frederick Lehman, the author of this hymn, found himself mid-way through his life moving from the Midwest to Pasadena, California and working a hard manual labor job to make ends meet. Inspired by words he had heard at a camp meeting years earlier, he found moments of time during breaks from his job to pick up a stub pencil, push a lemon box up against the wall, and pen the first two stanzas and chorus.
The words that had inspired Lehman were the words to the third stanza. Originally longer and part of a Jewish poem written in the year 1096, the paraphrased words, powerfully expressed in the spine-tingling poetry we know today, were found penciled by a patient on the walls of an insane asylum after he was carried to his grave.
Lehman believed that this insane man found moments of brilliant sanity in which he recalled the crazy love of God.
God’s love for us really is a crazy love, and it is so beautifully conveyed in the words of our song this week.
Frederick Lehman, the author of this hymn, found himself mid-way through his life moving from the Midwest to Pasadena, California and working a hard manual labor job to make ends meet. Inspired by words he had heard at a camp meeting years earlier, he found moments of time during breaks from his job to pick up a stub pencil, push a lemon box up against the wall, and pen the first two stanzas and chorus.
The words that had inspired Lehman were the words to the third stanza. Originally longer and part of a Jewish poem written in the year 1096, the paraphrased words, powerfully expressed in the spine-tingling poetry we know today, were found penciled by a patient on the walls of an insane asylum after he was carried to his grave.
Lehman believed that this insane man found moments of brilliant sanity in which he recalled the crazy love of God.
Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill
And ev’ry man a scribe by trade
And ev’ry man a scribe by trade
To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry,
Nor could the scroll contain the whole tho' stretched from sky to sky.
George Sweeting, author and former president of Moody Bible Institute, is quoted as saying,
Down through the years God’s love has shined through misery, tears, and sin like a shaft of sunlight on a dark day. We see God’s love in His revelation, in His mercy, in His patience, and in His redemption. We see the love of God as the infinite One becomes an infant in Bethlehem’s manger. We see it in His life and ministry. And most of all we see it as He hangs on the cross, dying for our sins.
To the world, it just seems insane. But to the believer, it is LIFE.
1 Corinthians 1:18
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Francis Chan, author of the book Crazy Love writes, "God didn't just give a little for us; He gave His best. He gave Himself."
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