Grief and God's Amazing Love

This is a transcript of a message given by Dennis Cochrane as recorded on the CD Grief and God’s Amazing Love. The audio version of this message is available on this website in MP3 format. and as RealAudio format. Clicking on the headphones icon will open a popup window that will allow you to listen to and/or download the file to your computer. You will have to allow popups for this site to work correctly. You will need Real Player 10 to listen to the Real Audio selections. Click on the Listen Online button to hear the whole CD in one sitting on-line.

Song: Only Forever

I. Introduction

Hello, my name is Dennis Cochrane. May I speak to those of you who have suffered some huge loss, some great trauma in your life? May I share with you some of the comfort with which the Lord has comforted me in recent months?
      Let me first share briefly the context in which the Lord has comforted me. First, my wife of forty-one years was diagnosed with advanced terminal cancer. And then in a space of four months there was just one trauma after another. Our son’s house burned completely to the ground and he and his wife and four young children lost almost every material thing they owned. My wife and I shared deeply in their heartbreak. Then I was diagnosed as a diabetic, requiring major adjustment in my lifestyle. Then my daughter began having really serious problems in her pregnancy requiring repeated emergency care. And then there was the trauma of watching my wife die, this one whom I loved with all my soul. And one week after her death I had a bicycle accident with a serious head injury resulting in stroke-like symptoms and requiring major head surgery and a long, slow recovery. And it seemed to some that what was happening to me might well have been what was happening to Peter when Christ said to him, “Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat.” (Luke 22:31)
      Well, this is the context in which the Lord has comforted me, and His chief comfort to me has been a new awareness of His deep, passionate love for me. It was my privilege to share these things with my home church. May I share with you what I shared with them? It is my prayer that the Lord will overwhelm you as He has me with these amazing comforts.
      Let me begin by reading to you from Ephesians 3, starting at verse 14. “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,  from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,  that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,  may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,  and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”  (Ephesians 3:14-19)
      Being rooted and grounded in the knowledge of the full dimensions of God’s love – that’s what this message is about. I’m speaking to you about God’s love, but I have in mind not that general love of God that He has for the entire world (John 3:16, “God so loved the world”). I’m speaking to you about the special passionate love God has for every true child of His. This message is full of comfort and joy, but I must say at the beginning: it is comfort and enormous joy only for those who have truly placed their faith in Christ, believing in Him not just in some passive way, but believing in Him to the point where they have given their lives to Him. If I have just described you, then these wonderful, wonderful comforts are very much for you.
      And now I want to ask you, my brother, my sister in Christ, how well rooted and grounded are you in the knowledge of God’s deep passionate love for you?
      I heard some years ago about a young man who attended Moody Bible Institute, a wonderful Christian School in Chicago. He was preparing for a lifetime of service to Christ. When he reached his senior year, he was given the privilege of addressing the entire student body in a chapel service. The Lord blessed his ministry so that the entire faculty and student body were just overwhelmed by the message that God brought to them through that young man. So during the course of that year he was asked a number of times to speak to the entire student body, and each time the Lord mightily blessed the whole school through his ministry. And then in the spring he graduated. That following summer he was involved in an automobile accident and his car was destroyed. He lost his car. And then he received a letter from his fiancée in which she broke their engagement. And with a heavy heart I tell you that this dear young man turned his back on the Lord and, to my knowledge, never came back into fellowship with Christ.
      I want to tell you about another man. Perhaps you know about him. His name was Horatio Spafford. He also lived in the Chicago area where he was a great blessing to many. He was quite wealthy. Then disaster struck: first his son died, then the great Chicago fire devastated him financially. Hoping to give his wife and four daughters a rest, he sent them ahead of him to Europe by ship. He planned to join them later. But the ship on which they were sailing was involved in an accident and sank rapidly. His wife survived, but the four daughters were lost. And as this dear man sailed to Europe to join his bereaved wife he wrote the words you and I have sung often.

When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea-billows roll,
Whatever my lot,
Thou hast taught me to say,
“It is well,
It is well, with my soul!”

      And I want to ask you, why is it that calamity turns some of God’s people into spiritual pygmies and others into spiritual giants? I believe one of the key factors of spiritual survival in the face of calamity is for us to know with all our hearts the depth, the height, the length and the breadth, the full dimensions of God’s enormous, passionate love for us. That’s what will keep us from spiritual collapse in the day of calamity.

II. Constant Intimate Companionship

Now will you consider with me some of the evidences of God’s love for you, you who have owned His Son as your Lord and Savior. How much does God love you? One of the answers is that He loves you so much that He longs for your constant intimate companionship. In Matthew 28:20, the Lord Jesus said to His followers, “I am with you always.” Always! And in Hebrews 13:5 we read, “being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.’”  Never!
      So you’ve got these two strong words, always and never. “I will always be with you. I will never leave you.” Now I would guess that we all have friends whom we enjoy being around once in a while but not all the time. You know, it takes a great deal of love to want to be with someone all the time – all day, every day, 24/7, as they say. You’ve got to love a person an awful lot to want that kind of constant, constant companionship.
      So what does that mean in terms of Christ’s love for you, that He wants to be with you all the time, all day every day, never to be separated from you? That ought to say a lot to you about how much He loves you.
      The story is told of a young boy sitting on a curb beside the road, crying his eyes out. A stranger walking by, noticing the boy crying with such a broken heart. sat down on the curb beside him and put his arm around the young boy. He said, “Son what has happened, can I help you?” When the young boy finally was able to speak, he explained to the stranger that both of his parents had been recently killed in an automobile accident and he was now living with relatives who were taking care of him. They were good to him, but they didn’t love him like his parents did. Then, finally, the little boy, with tears streaming down his cheeks, looked into the stranger’s face and said, “Mister, I just need someone to love me who won’t ever die!”
      Oh, child of God, that’s what you have in Christ. You have Someone who wants to be with you all day every day, never wants to be separated from you, Someone whose love for you will never die, because He will never die. He’ll be with you, your loving Companion, forever! But that’s not the best news. It gets even better.
      In John 14:21 we read these words, Jesus speaking, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”  Now that’s the New American Standard version of the Bible. Other versions variously, “I will reveal myself to him.” (NLT) “I will show myself to him.” (NIV) “I will manifest myself to him.” (KJV) “I will unveil myself to him.” (?) I like the word “unveil.” It’s picture language: taking away the veil so that we can really see Him as He really is.
      When my wife and I were first married we had been engaged for two years. I don’t recommend that to anybody – they were miserable two years. The trouble was that we were separated by hundreds of miles for almost all of that two-year period. So when we were finally married, we wanted to really know each other at a deeper level. So one of the things we did was to probe each other’s thoughts. For example, while we were driving down the highway, Nancy, my wife, might turn to me and say, “What are you thinking right now?” And I would tell her what I was thinking just at that moment. And I would do the same to her: “What are you thinking right now?” And she would share with me her thoughts at that moment. And so we began to unveil ourselves to each other. I let her look into her thought life and she let me look into her thought life.
      I find it amazing – more than amazing – that the Son of God in all of His glory is willing – not only willing, but He desires to unveil Himself to us, to let us look into His very soul! I don’t let anyone look into my soul, who is not very special to me. How special you must be, child of God, that Jesus wants to unveil Himself to you, to let you know the deepest thoughts of His heart, to let you look into His very soul! That’s how much you mean to Christ!
      But that still is not the best news – the news gets even better! Christ in His high-priestly prayer in John 17:24 prays, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am....” With Me where I am! Does that phrase ring any bells with you? Does it remind you of any other text in Scripture? What about John 14:2-3? Jesus speaking: “I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you into heaven.” Is that what it says? No! It says, “I will receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” Listen to this: heaven will never be quite good enough for Jesus until, at last, He has you with Him there! Isn’t that amazing? “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am....” It’s not enough for Jesus that He should be with you here. He wants you with Him there!
      May I say to you, if that sounds like some kind of heresy to you, it’s because you don’t have any idea how much you are loved by Jesus. I believe that’s what Psalm 116:15 is talking about when it says,

Precious in the sight of the LORD
Is the death of His godly ones.

      Precious? Death? This thing that breaks our hearts? How could that be precious to Him? Ah, precious, because He who loved you while you were still in your mother’s womb, He who loved you before the earth began will at last – at last – have you with Him where He is! Amazing truth, hardly believable: heaven will not be good enough for Jesus until He has you with Him there!

Song: When You Think of Me

III. Maximum Intensity

How much does God love you? God’s love for you reaches maximum intensity. I suppose we humans know of no more wonderful, intimate love relationship than that which exists in a good marriage: two people who love each other more than they love anyone else in the world. But let me ask you a question. Is there any one moment in a married person’s life when that love, especially that of the bridegroom for his bride, reaches maximum intensity – reaches fever pitch?
      Well, I think there is such a moment and I think that I have experienced it. I remember it well. I was standing at the front of the church, the preacher was standing next to me, two groomsmen, and then the bridesmaids began walking down the aisle. And then, finally, the most beautiful lady in all the world began walking down that aisle on her father’s arm and I broke into a huge smile. I’m sure my smile began at one ear and stretched all of the way across my face to the other ear. People looked at me and then they looked again and I thought, you know, I must look really silly with this huge smile. I tried to get the thing under control and I couldn’t, I could not do it. A moment of delirious joy. Love at fever pitch. When the bridegroom takes his beautiful bride into his arms for the first time as his wife.
      Now, listen to the words of Isaiah 62:5. “And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you.” Did you know that God loves you that much? He takes this moment of fever-pitched love and says, “That’s how I rejoice over you, my child!” Oh, dance for joy, Christian, dance for joy! Christ loves you deeply, passionately, like a bridegroom loves His bride.

IV. Always on His Mind

How much does God love you? God’s love for you is such that He can’t get you off His mind. I don’t know if any of you do what I do when I really must remember something. I learned a long time ago that if I write a note to myself and put it in my pocket, it’s likely to stay right there in my pocket until it’s too late. So I’ve learned that if I really absolutely must remember something, if I take a ball-point pen and write it on my hand I’ll remember it, because there it is, right in front of me every time I open my hand. So don’t be surprised if you see me walking around with scribble in my hand. I do it often. Now, of course I have to be careful about washing that hand. I can wipe my memory right out.
      And I wonder if some of you ladies do what my wife often did when she really had to remember something. She would take a ring from one hand and put it over on the other hand. I don’t know about that, but apparently it serves as a mild irritant. She feels something’s wrong. It doesn’t feel right. And so, because of that mild irritation, she is reminded of what she’s supposed to remember.
      Now will you listen to the words of Isaiah 49:16. God is speaking to His people and he says this, “I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (NIV) Engraved! That’s permanent! I suppose in modern terminology we might say, “I have tattooed your name permanently on the palms of my hands.” No ball-point pen that can be easily washed off, permanently engraved. And did you notice, he didn’t say hand? He said hands, both hands! You may say, “Well, that’s picture language.” Yes, it probably is, but, oh my, what a picture! God going to extremes to tell us that He will never allow us out of His mind! He thinks about us all the time. You know, we have a saying, “Out of sight and out of mind.” God has determined to never let you out of His sight or out of His mind. That’s how much you mean to Him.
      I received a beautiful little card in the mail some time after my wife passed away. And on the front of the card it said, “I think about you quite a bit.” And on the inside of the card it said, “God thinks about you all the time.” Oh, that’s not just spiritual hype, folks, it’s reality! He has written – no, He has engraved your name on both of His hands! How better can He tell you that He will never allow Himself to be unaware of you? He will always be thinking about you. That’s how much you mean to Him.

V. No Good Thing Withheld

How much does God love you? His love for you has caused Him to give you His solemn word that He will never allow you to miss out on anything that would be good for you, never! Let me put it another way: Because of His great love for you, He cannot bear to keep from you even one small thing that would be good for you. Now I wonder if that sounds a bit trite to you, maybe even a little boring. But, oh, I covet to present to you this truth in such a way that it will seize your heart and do for you what it has done for me. It’s been a long time since any truth from God’s Word has been so life-changing for me. Now here are the texts which I will use on which to base these remarks. If you don’t have these verses stored in your mind, I recommend them to you for memory.
      Psalm 34:10. “The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; But they who seek the LORD shall not be in want of any good thing.”
      Psalm 84:11 “No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.”
      And, lastly, a verse I know you know by heart: Psalm 23:1. “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
      Now these verses can be summed up by saying, if you, as a child of God, will maintain a walk with God, in which you will not tolerate known disobedience to Him; and when you do fall and disobey Him, you will acknowledge your sin, repent and turn from it, receive Christ’s cleansing and go on walking in intimate fellowship with Him; if you will walk with Him in that way, God has given you His solemn word, whether you can believe it or not, it’s true – how blessed you are if you do believe it – God has given His solemn word that He will never, never permit you to miss out on even one thing that He knows would be good for your life! Never! Now I hasten to add, that doesn’t rule out testing. It doesn’t rule out suffering. It doesn’t rule out hard things in your life, but it does mean this: it means that when testing and suffering and hard things come into your life, they will do so when and only when that is the very best thing that could happen to you in the sight of  God! He will never, ever allow you to go without something that He calls good for you. So I wonder what thing you may be thinking is missing in your life that might be good for you to have. Better health? More money? A wife? A husband? More friends? Better friends? A better car? A bigger house? Is there something in your life that is missing that you think would be really good for you to have? Well, I want to say to you, don’t trust your heart too much. It’s capable of lying to you.
      And now I’m going to share with you something very personal from my own life. I wish I could think of some way to bring this truth down out of the clouds and make it just really vital and practical to you without using something so personal in my own life, but I am absolutely passionate about sharing this truth with you in such a way that it will seize your heart as it has mine.
      My heart in recent months has been lying to me almost every day. Do you know what my heart has been telling me? You need a wife! And I feel that especially when I’m in the kitchen. You need a wife, Dennis! And you know something? I’ve even got a Bible verse to back me up! I love it. Genesis 2:18. God is speaking about Adam and he says, “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone;’” And so I’ve taken that verse and I’ve underlined those two words in my Bible: not good. And I’ve shown that verse to the Lord, in case He wasn’t aware of it. I’ve said to Him, “Lord, your very Word says it! It’s not good! You’ve promised everything good for me and this isn’t good!” And I explained to the Lord that I am not like the Apostle Paul who handled singleness very well. I’m like Adam. It isn’t good for me to be alone. That’s what I tell the Lord.
      But now I’ve got a problem. I have a big problem, because God says, “Right now, at this moment, I am not allowing you to miss even one thing that would be good for you!” So that’s God’s opinion. And my opinion is, “This isn’t good.” Well, I know enough about the Lord to know that He doesn’t lie. I know His word is absolutely trustworthy. So a couple days ago I was shopping in Wal-Mart and across the store, some distance away, I saw a lady who, at least from a distance, looked very much like my wife Nancy. And instantly my heart said, “Oh, wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if I had her again in my life?” And just as instantly the Lord in that Wal-Mart said to me, “Dennis, are you not able to believe what I’ve promised you, that I will never withhold any good thing from you, that if it were good for you to have a wife right now, with absolute certainty you would have one? Are you not able to take Me at My word, Dennis?” And so, right there in that Wal-Mart, I cried out in the words of that Dad who brought his son to Jesus to be healed. I said, “Lord, I do believe; help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)
      I want to tell you, I am learning. I am still very much in the process of learning. For the most part, by the help of God, I am learning one day at a time, one hour at a time, if necessary, to take God’s word at face value, to rejoice by sheer, blind faith that right now I have everything in my life that God knows would be good for me. I have His word on it! He loves me that much.
      Oh, my friends, if that isn’t true, then this book I hold in my hands is unreliable and my faith is silly. But it is true, and I tell you, it has been transforming my life. For months, during Nancy’s long illness, I never broke into spontaneous singing, not once. But when I began to take these words of God at face value, when I decided to really believe them, I am happy to tell you that I have been breaking into spontaneous singing as I drive down the highway. God has restored to me a singing heart! It is because I have come to realize that He loves me so much. He is committed by His word never to allow me to miss out on anything good.  Oh friends, oh friends, what bright hope for the future, as well as for the present! And I’m thrilled to tell you, this is how much God loves you, too! He will never allow you to miss out on even one small thing that would be good for you. Oh, may you find grace to believe it! It will make such a difference in your life and it will keep you from stumbling and falling in the day of calamity.

VI. Extreme Sacrifice

How much does God love you? His love for you embraces extreme sacrifice.
      Question: How can you tell the difference between puppy love and real love? You all know what puppy love is, don’t you? It’s that fluffy, mushy stuff that teenagers have for each other. They think it’s real (as they say, it’s real to the puppies), but it’s puppy love and most of us know about that.
      How can you tell the difference between puppy love and real love? I believe one of the outstanding differences is that real love embraces sacrifice and anything less than real love resists sacrifice. And may I add this: extreme love embraces extreme sacrifice.
      When my wife and I received that horrific diagnosis, very advanced stage terminal cancer with maybe only two to four months to live, we fell into each others arms and with choking voice I said to her, “Would to God that I could die for you!” And I meant that with every fiber of my being. How gladly I would have given my life to save hers. That’s how much I loved her. And it is a huge joy for me to say to every one of you who owns Christ as your Lord and Savior, dear child of God, that’s how much God loves you! He proved at the cross – listen to this – He proved at the cross that He’d rather die than lose you! That’s how much you mean to him! Love doesn’t get any stronger than that. How much more love than that do you need? Child of God, how much more love than that could you ever want? God giving His life to save yours.
      I know there are circumstances in some of your lives that are fairly screaming at you that God doesn’t love you. And of course, the Evil One is coming along side and whispering in your ear, “That’s the truth!” He says, “God couldn’t possibly love you to allow to happen to you what is happening to you.” Big lie! Satan’s favorite lie! I say to you, don’t believe it.  Take that lie to the cross and find out how much you mean to Christ. He’d rather die than to lose you. And I think some of you – and I say this with a heavy heart – some of you who have enormous potential to be mighty servants of God, able to do exploits for Him, some of you are in grave danger of becoming spiritual wimps because you’re having serious questions about God’s love for you. I want to say to you, what else must He do to prove to you how precious you are to Him? If the cross won’t do it, what will it take? Oh, my friend, my brother, my sister, let the cross prove to you that you are the object of God’s extreme love! Really extreme love judged by the sacrifice He made to bring you to Himself.

VII. Summary

Now let me close with a quick summary of what we’ve said.
      How much does God love you? He loves you so much He wants to be in your intimate companionship all the time, all day every day. He grieves at the thought of being separated from you, He loves you that much.
      How much does God love you? He loves you so much that He wants to reveal to you His very inner soul, to unveil to you all that He is, His deepest thoughts.
      How much does God love you? He loves you so much that heaven will not be quite good enough for Him until at last He has you with Him there. It’ll be a precious day to Him when at last you come into His presence. That’s how much you mean to Him.
      How much does God love you? He loves you passionately like a bridegroom loves His beautiful bride at that moment when, for the first time, he takes her into his arms as his wife. How amazing!
      How much does God love you? So much that He has given His word, never ever to keep from you even one thing that would be good for you!
      How much does God love you? So much that He has determined never to let you out of His mind. He has engraved your name on both of His hands.
      How much does God love you? He proved at the cross that He’d rather die than to lose you. Love can’t get any stronger than that.
      How much does God love you? Our text, Ephesians 3, says His love for you is completely beyond human comprehension, way beyond our ability to fully grasp. And that is why we have not even scratched the surface of this amazing topic.
      Oh, poor, blind, dull heart, how long will it take you to believe that God truly, deeply, passionately loves you?

VIII. What Shall We Say?

So what shall we say to these things? May I suggest two responses.
      First, trust the Lord completely, no matter the circumstances you’re now facing. Anyone who loves you as passionately as God loves you is worthy of your trust. You  may say, “Yes, but I just don’t feel in a trusting frame of mind right now – I mean, I’m being crushed!” May I say to you that trust is not a feeling, it’s a decision. And you can, right now, in whatever circumstances you find yourself, decide to believe what God says for no reason other than that He says it. Not because you feel like it.
      The second response, may I suggest to you, is to fall in love with Christ anew. Let your love answer back to His love. Do not be satisfied to love him “sort of.” The kind of love with which He loves you earns from you passionate love in return.
      Please bow with me in prayer.

Father, thank You for teaching us about Yourself. Over the years we’ve come to know that Your love is better, better even than the love of the most tender, loving mother we’ve ever known or heard about. Thank you for that. And we pray, by Your Spirit, that You will so root us and ground us in the knowledge of Your love that we may be unshaken and unshakable in the day of calamity, so that we may be an honor and a joy to You rather than a dishonor to Your Name. We pray this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Song: Glory To The Living God

Unless otherwise designated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible^® Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations designated (NIV) are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version^®. Copyright © 1973, 1978,1984 by International Bible Society. Used by Permission of the International Bible Society.

“NIV” and “New International Version” are  trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark office by International Bible Society

Scripture quotations designated (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2002 Dennis Cochrane

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