O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, spread His praise from shore to shore!
How He loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore!
How He watches o’er His loved ones, died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth, watcheth o’er them from the throne!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the best!
’Tis an ocean full of blessing, ’tis a haven giving rest!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, ’tis a heaven of heavens to me;
And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!
It’s one of the greatest privileges of the last 20 years, of being involved in student ministry, to have met Christians from all over the world. There are two things which never fail to pleasantly surprise me: the sure conviction of the love of God, through Christ Jesus, extending to everyone who will believe in Him and also the joy, unshakeable joy, it brings.
In 1991 I landed with 24 other Brits in Johannesburg for a 4 week trip organised by Youth for Christ and Tearfund. The team/trip was entitled ‘through different eyes’ it would change me profoundly. We met with 20 or so of our African peers, most from South Africa and some from Zimbabwe to talk through culture and the gospel. We toured Soweto in a bus early on in that trip as we drove past abject poverty (in which many of the African team members lived) they started singing ‘soon and very soon we are going to see the King’. It moved me to tears then, thinking about it still does.
In 2003 I landed in Kuala Lumpur accompanied by Nick Brennan (now working in Otago region with TSCF) for what should have been a South East Asia regional conference. The slight snag was that there was a SARS epidemic raging and the Asia wide conference had to be cancelled, however the Malaysian students were called together and they came. A hugely diverse group of students ethnically and culturally gathered and sang, and talked and ate and ate and ate together. Meeting men who had grown up in jungle villages in Borneo as well as women were city girls, loving KL, the unifying love of Christ at work in them was impressive.
In 2005 I landed in New Zealand for the first time and the lessons are still being learned. Samuel Trevor Francis’ words express my confidence and my hope that in my life, through the cracks and the blemishes of character as well as the strengths that God has built into me, the deep deep love of Jesus would speak to others – my family, my next door neighbours and everyone else – because it is precisely this love which has given me the hope and reality of eternal life.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39
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