He is Jealous for me.
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by Glory.**
And I realize just how beautiful you are, and how great your affections are for me

Chorus

Oh! How He loves us, oh.
Oh, how He loves us.
How He loves us all

And we are His portion and He is our prize,
drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If His grace is an ocean we’re all sinking.
And heaven meets earth with an unforseen kiss.
My heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets** when I think about the way…

that He loves us, oh yeah He loves us…

2005 Integrity’s Hosanna Music

* Other versions of this give a more physical description of that kiss. This version relects to me the gentleness of Jesus

**I think I spend alot of time thinking about my regrets; interestingly a preacher on the radio the other day described Hell as a place of eternal regret. But as I begin to hope and believe on this Love like never before, those regrets of sins long passed and repented of are “eclipsed by Glory”.

Thanks Be to God!

One day, dur­ing short in­ter­vals of in­at­ten­tion to our work, we picked up a scrap of pa­per and, seat­ed up­on an emp­ty le­mon box pushed against the wall, with a stub pen­cil, add­ed the (first) two stan­zas and chor­us of the song…Since the lines (3rd stan­za from the Jew­ish po­em) had been found pen­ciled on the wall of a pa­tient’s room in an in­sane asy­lum af­ter he had been car­ried to his grave, the gen­er­al opin­ion was that this in­mate had writ­ten the epic in mo­ments of san­ity.

Frederick M. Lehman, “History of the Song, The Love of God,” 1948

Here are the full lyrics:

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Refrain

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Refrain

I have always had trouble with 1 Corinthians 13 “Love is….”. It’s a miserable list of rules. It’s worse than the proverbial “ball and chain” (marriage) and the 10 commandments multiplied together.
That is, until I began to understand that the Trinity as love defined. Just as Jesus is our salvation, God is Love, and that is scriptural. So in my opinion, since I have never ever met anyone who really exemplifies 1 Cor. 13 love, Jesus is the one being described there. The passage may be thought on as an ideal, a pattern to aspire to. Rather, I think that in remembering that Jesus is being spoken of here, the more we abide in Him, study Him, get to know His love (it suddenly occurs to me, maybe I should get to know that passage better, as fodder for worship), the more His image will rub off on me.
I John says: When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we will see Him as he Is.
So now, in incomplete ways, the more clearly we see Him, in Love with the Father and the Spirit, the more clearly we see how He has dealt with us, loves us with grace and mercy, the more we will conform to His image, toward Him, our brothers and our neighbors.
So much for theory, now ask my wife and neighbors how that’s working out.