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Sunday, May 3, 2015

Mysterious love

You have not handed me over to my enemies but have set me in a safe place. ~ Psalm 31:8 (NCV/NLT)

And I pray that you and all God’s holy people will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ’s love—how wide and how long and how high and how deep that love is. Christ’s love is greater than anyone can ever know, but I pray that you will be able to know that love. Then you can be filled with the fullness of God. ~ Ephesians 3:18-19 (NCV)
Loving God, I am again confronted with mystery. Why do you bother to save people like me? Why do you reveal your incomprehensible love to people like me? Why do you even love people like me? Please help me to know what I need to know and to enjoy the mystery of what can't be understood. Keep me from the frustration that comes when I try to box you in and rigidly speculate about things which cannot be completely systematized. Even though I can't fully understand what this means, I pray that you would fill me with more of you. Amen.
Challenging Words
  • incomprehensible -- Something which cannot possibly be understood is incomprehensible.
  • box you in -- idiom suggesting confinement, taking away freedom, narrow-mindedness
  • systematized -- to tightly organize objects or ideas. Sometimes when we have a tightly organized system we try to make things fit into it that do not really fit.

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TRANSLATIONS

ABP = Authorized Boydston Paraphrase — my own freestyle biblical adaptation — somewhere between paraphrase, commentary, and sermon

CEB = Common English Bible (©2011, the Common English Bible)

CEV = Contemporary English Version (©1995, American Bible Society)

EEB = EasyEnglish Bible (©2015, MissionAssist)

ERV = Easy-To-Read Version (©2006, World Bible Translation Center)

EXB = The Expanded Bible (©2011, Thomas Nelson Publishing)

GNT = Good News Translation (©1992, American Bible Society)

MSG = The Message (©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson)

NCB = New Catholic Bible (©2019 by Catholic Book Publishing Corp.)

NCV = New Century Version (©2005, Thomas Nelson Inc)

NIRV = New International Reader's Version (©1996, 1998, Biblica)

NIV = New International Version (©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, Biblica)

NLT = New Living Translation (©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, Tyndale House Foundation)

NRSVue = New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (© 2021 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)

NTE = New Testament for Everyone (©2011 Nicolas Thomas Wright.)

REB = Revised English Bible (© 1989 Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press)

TCEB = The Casual English Bible (© Stephen M. Miller)

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