Stephen spoke tonight on God’s lavish love, using a scone to illustrate his points!
God’s love is limitless, intense, everlasting and personal (John 3:16). God’s love is such that He sent His only Son to save us and promises to make His dwelling in us. (Jn 14:23) Just as when we move into a new house, we take over the whole place, so God wants to move into every part of our lives. His love is beyond our knowledge and understanding (Eph 3:19); it is a love which will last beyond the grave (Rom 8:39), but so often, we struggle to try to fathom this love instead of simply receiving it as dearly loved children. (Eph 5:1, 1 Jn 2:28-29).
Our lives, on their own, can be rather like a scone: dry, with some flavour, but lacking true love.
God wants to lavish His love on our lives (1 Jn 3:1-2) – rather like lavishly adding jam and clotted cream to the scone make it taste much nicer!
God’s generosity, grace and love are poured out onto our lives with no sense of stinginess or holding back (see Eph 1:5-10). So often, however, we find it hard to accept that we are ‘dear children’; we want to be adults and don’t relish the thought of accepting God’s love with child-like faith. If we want our lives to overflow with love and the many gifts God gives, we have to become as little children, however, and receive God’s gifts with open arms.