How to Grasp God's Love—Learning from ‘Mungu Ni Upendo’
The song "Mungu Ni Upendo" by the Kwaya ya Mt. Kizito Makuburi choir is a powerful testament to a fundamental Christian truth: God is love. Yet, for many believers, this powerful truth can feel more like an intellectual concept than a lived reality. This is the very heart of the song's message, drawn from the Apostle Paul’s prayer in Ephesians. It's a journey from knowing about God's love to truly experiencing it.
The hymn speaks to a common struggle shared by many, from new Christians to seasoned believers. We know God loves us, but how do we truly feel it? How do we move past a spiritual dryness and connect with this profound truth in our daily lives?
The Challenge of the Ephesians
Even the early Christians in Ephesus, who seemed to be "all-stars" of the faith, faced this same challenge. Their church life was thriving, and they were ready for deep theological truths, yet they struggled to genuinely experience God's love. This struggle is as old as Christianity itself. Recognizing this, Paul pauses in his letter to them to do something radical: he gets on his knees and prays fervently for them to know and experience Christ’s love.
Paul’s posture in prayer—on his knees—is a sign of a profound struggle or deep passion. He is begging God to make an intellectual truth a living reality for them. What's so interesting is that Paul had already taught the Ephesians that they had God's love. So why was he praying so intensely for something they already possessed?
The answer is simple: knowing isn't enough. There's a deeper level of knowledge and experience they needed to "wrestle" into their hearts
Wrestling with Love Through the Spirit
Paul's prayer finds its source in the Holy Spirit, whom he says is the key to experiencing God’s love. He prays, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3:16–17).
The Holy Spirit gives us a "spiritual inner sensitivity to gospel truth." This is the primary difference between a believer who feels spiritually dry and one who is warm and passionate. It's the Holy Spirit who reveals God's truth to us, empowers us to live like Christ, and transforms us with increasing glory. It's the Spirit who enables us to truly "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8).
How to Grasp God's Love
So, how do we get Christ's love into our hearts? Paul’s prayer gives us three powerful keys. He prays that we may have the power to grasp how "wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." This means we must actively engage with this truth.
Slow Down and Make Time: In our fast-paced lives, hurry can quench the Holy Spirit. We must intentionally slow down and make time for sustained prayer and quiet seeking. It's in these moments that we can turn off the noise and open ourselves to God's presence.
Meditate on the Word: The word of God is food for our souls. As George Muller once said, we shouldn't just let it "pass through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe." We must meditate on what we read, pondering and applying it to our hearts.
Meditate on the Cross: Paul emphasizes the love of Christ specifically to point us to the cross. He asks us to grasp how wide, long, high, and deep that love is—wide enough to embrace us, long enough to last forever, high enough to lift us to heaven, and deep enough to reach us in our lowest moments. There is no better way to get His love into our hearts than by meditating on Christ's sacrifice for us.
In the end, "Mungu Ni Upendo" is a call to action. It’s a call to move beyond mere belief and to actively seek, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to grasp the love of God revealed on the cross. It is a reminder that God’s love is not just a doctrine, but a living, breathing reality meant to fill our souls.
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