Sabbath Devotional: God is Love

The Mesa Easter Pageant, Jesus the Christ, has been a beloved tradition in Arizona for 88 years, beginning as an Easter sunrise service in 1938. Since then, it has grown into the largest annual outdoor Easter pageant in the world. Having grown up in Mesa, it has always been one of my favorite Easter traditions.

Four years ago, the Church asked for the entire production to be rewritten and for a new soundtrack to be created. One song in particular (based off a poem by Frederick William Faber in 1862) completely moved me the first time I heard it, and its message has stayed with me ever since:

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,

Like the wideness of the sea;

There’s a kindness in His justice,

Far more kind than we dare dream

There is welcome for the sinner,

With more grace than I deserve.

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.

For the love of God is broader

Than the measure of man’s mind;

And the heart of the Eternal

Is most wonderful and kind.

Sing my soul and all within me

Sing to break the clouds above

Sing and praise and shout forever

God is Love

God is Love

The image of God’s mercy being wide like the sea overwhelmed me.

There is also a scene in the pageant depicting the parable of the Good Samaritan. You watch as the priest and the Levite both see the wounded man and pass by him. Then the Samaritan (the enemy of the Jews) comes around the corner, and the moment he sees the injured man, he runs to him. As I watched the scene unfold, I was struck by the urgency of the Samaritan’s compassion in his absolute rush to relieve pain and suffering.

In that moment, I thought of the beautiful words of Elder Patrick Kearon: “God is in relentless pursuit of you.” Relentless means refusing to stop or give up. His full quote says:

“My friends, my fellow disciples on the road of mortal life, our Father’s beautiful plan, even His “fabulous” plan, is designed to bring you home, not to keep you out. No one has built a roadblock and stationed someone there to turn you around and send you away. In fact, it is the exact opposite. God is in relentless pursuit of you. He “wants all of His children to choose to return to Him,” and He employs every possible measure to bring you back.”

(April 2024 General Conference)

I’m also a sucker for some good Christian contemporary music. I love the song The Goodness of God, where the words are repeated over and over: “Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me.”

That same image appears in the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. Verse 20 says:

“But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”

Can we truly comprehend the magnitude of the love that our Father has for us? The enormity of it? I love these images of our Father in Heaven running towards us, running to rescue us, in relentless pursuit of His children.

I believe that when we can even start to feel the love that God has for us, we are changed. We are “new creatures in Christ”. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

I especially love these verses in 1 John 4:

8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

19 We love him, because he first loved us.

Did you catch that? We love Him, because He first loved us.

Elder Dieter F Uchtdorf taught:

“Think of the purest, most all-consuming love you can imagine. Now multiply that love by an infinite amount — that is the measure of God’s love for you.

Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God’s love encompasses us completely.” (Oct 2009 General Conference)

As we strive to become peacemakers, I believe that truly feeling God’s love for us, changes the way we see others and especially those with whom we disagree. When we understand how deeply we are loved, we become more patient, more humble, and more empathetic. We are filled with His grace and mercy, and we will never be the same.

Sister Chieko Okazaki explained how this works: “The reason ‘charity never faileth’ (1 Corinthians 13:8) is because we aren’t in charge of the supply department. Love comes from our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, spilling over into our own hearts until we simply brim over with love into the lives of others” (Lighten Up [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1993]).

The more we feel the love of God, the more impossible it becomes to withhold love from others. It changes us. It softens us. His relentless pursuit of us teaches us how to pursue one another, with compassion instead of condemnation. In a world filled with division and fear, perhaps the greatest witness we can offer is to become people who truly believe that God is love and then live like it.

. . . . . . . .

The Prodigal Son (The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ), print, after Sir John Everett Millais, engraved and printed by Dalziel Brothers

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Julie Spilsbury is the faithful root director at Mormon Women for Ethical Government.