God’s Overarching Love
[Jesus said:] I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.
Matthew 28:20 NIV
This is a promise for obedient disciples, and it is marvelously inclusive. Dr. Handley Moule, sometime Anglican bishop of Durham, England, and a noted Greek scholar, maintained that the always could be paraphrased to mean, “I am with you all the days, all day long.” That means we can count on Christ’s presence not only every day, but every moment of every day. Of the fact of His presence there can be no doubt, for His Word cannot fail. What we need is to cultivate the sense of His presence, every day, every hour, every moment.
Some years ago my wife, Ruth, had a terrible fall. She suffered a concussion, was unconscious for nearly a week, broke her foot in five places, and injured her hip. When she regained consciousness she found she had lost a great deal of her memory. What disturbed her most was that she had forgotten so many of the Scriptures she had learned throughout the years. The verses of a whole lifetime were more precious to her than all earthly possessions.
One night when she was praying, because she was so distressed, out of nowhere came the verse, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” She had no recollection of ever memorizing this verse, but the Lord brought it back to her. Gradually, other verses began to come back. But interestingly, while she was still trying to recover her memory, she memorized Romans 8:31–39 and repeated those verses over and over again.
I urge you to memorize this passage. Hide it away in your heart. When persecution, trouble, and adversity arise, these verses will come back to you a thousand times and remind you of God’s overarching love personified in His Son, our Savior.
Our Father and our God, thank You for always being with me—every moment of every hour of every day. And thank You for the comfort and encouragement of Your Word. It speaks to my heart when my heart is hurting. It cries with me and laughs with me. Your Word is my dearest friend, Lord. Let me share it with others. Because of Christ. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).