Immeasurable

In Spanish, the term inconmensurable refers to that which cannot be measured, but not because of a lack of tools, but because it is of such great magnitude that there is no way to make that measurement.

Thinking about it, what better example of immeasurable than God himself, infinite in all his characteristics, is immeasurable in each one of them.

One of these characteristics is His grace, which is the constant demonstration of God’s love, that although we have denied Him since the beginning of history, He never ceases to show us His love, to the point of leaving His throne and giving the value of His life for our redemption (Romans 5:8).

Psalm 103

In my opinion, 103 of the book of Psalms shows how poetry dares to break logic and teaches us the immeasurable in a very simple way. So much so that perhaps you didn’t stop to think about its depth before.

Sublime grace of the Lord, who saved an unhappy man.

of John Newton’s hymn “Amazing grace”.

Does that sound right, I think we agree that it does. But how deep is your understanding of the meaning of that simple line?

Before he met the Lord, Newton was involved in the slave trade in his work as a sailor back in the 18th century. Although we would fall short, we can make the attempt to imagine the experiences he must have lived through and surely the cruelties he himself executed. Would the very line of the hymn have meaning to its author?

Sublime grace of the Lord…
that saved an unhappy man.

Wow, the gift of forgiveness must have a much more real flavor, if like Newton, you are aware of a forgiveness that is humanly impossible to measure.

Newton’s God

Newton’s God of the eighteenth century is the same now and has always been the same because he is also infinite, immeasurable in his very existence. He is the same God for the past and for our times, for the people of the cities and for those in the most disconnected spaces of modernity, for speakers of Spanish, English, Yanesha’, Quechua or Tatuyo.

The first two verses of 103 of Psalms direct us to focus on the praise that God deserves:

1 Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits

And here comes the question: How to define the limits of the immeasurability of his grace? Well, simply by ceasing to look for the ultimate limit and focusing on the near. In those simple events, where person by person throughout the world and day by day throughout history, the Lord shows his forgiveness and love.

3 who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,

Each verse from 3 to 16 becomes an opportunity to observe the immeasurability of God in a real way. I encourage you to look up the rest of this psalm and stop to capture, in each verse and according to your own experience, what the same God of a slave salesman does for you day by day.