God's Love = 3 Septillion kilometers?

"Guess How Much I Love You" by Sam McBratney is a classic, best-selling children's book. The story is about a Nutbrown hare and his son trying to outdo each other as they answer the question. If you're not familiar with the story, I've embedded the "animated" version of the book.




In the end, the son was looking out into the big dark night and realized that nothing could be farther than the sky. So he tells his daddy that he loved him right up to the moon. The daddy hare, touched by statement, tenderly looks at his son who was already sleeping. Then lovingly he whispers that he loved his son right up to the moon - and back. Daddy couldn't be outdone!

Now imagine a similar storyline. Perhaps with a title like this: Guess How Much God Loves You. Well, we really won't need guessing. That's because the Bible already gives us an idea.


For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. (Psalm 103 : 11)

I could paraphrase that verse this way : God's love for us extends as far as going from earth to the outermost regions of the universe - and back. We can then perhaps quantify it. If the farthest galaxies are about 15 billion light years away from earth, then God's love would extend as far as 30 billion light years. This distance is roughly 30 billion x 10 trillion kilometers which is equivalent to 3 septillion kilometers! That's 3 followed by 24 zeros.

Ok, I admit that it's just a silly mathematical exercise. The bottomline is that God's love for us has cannot be bounded by any number. No, not even googol (10 followed by 100 zeros) nor infinity!

Paul says this :

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19)

How can we grasp God's love? A good start would be reminding ourselves again why we care to put up lights, decorate trees, buy gifts, send cards, and go to parties at this time of the year. Read John 3:16.