The title of this devotional is inspired by one of our (my wife’s and mine) favorite songs by the BeeGees (remember “Saturday Night Fever”?) But it drives home a very good point in our discussion of viewing the mercies of God: we need to know the depth of God’s love and character in order to respond to Him in Whole Life Worship.

Yesterday we looked at expanding the breadth of our God-vision. But even if we could know all the attributes of God’s character and mercies, it could only take us so far. We need to know how deeply God is involved with you and me – in specific ways, not in general.

For example, it is one thing to know that God is loving. It is an altogether different (and more wonderful) thing to know that God is loving … to you! Then to experience this love in specific ways makes this even more wonderful and powerful.

Such knowledge and experience of the depth of God moves and empowers people to things they never imagined possible: like the confused, young man who experienced God’s grace in a way that called him to lead millions of people to salvation in Christ (read “Just As I Am” by Billy Graham). Or Agnes, the humble young woman from Albania, who experienced God’s love so profoundly that she left her family and moved to India to show God’s love to the poorest of the poor (we know her better as Mother Teresa). Certainly their religious background taught them many things about God. But it wasn’t until God went deep with them that this something wonderful happened to them that made them world changers. I call this phenomenon: “Whole Life Worship.” And it happens to anyone who wants to go deep with God.

I want to share two ways we can position ourselves to go deeper with God and see the depths of His love and character for us:

1. Start with an attribute of God, reflect on it, and ask God to show you the depth of His love for you in this attribute. For example, the first of God’s attributes in my list of “100 I Love About You” is “holy.” God is holy. Holy means “set apart, distinct, one of a kind.” There are a couple of Scripture verses in my list that name this quality of God. Read them and reflect upon them. Think about how God is holy. Then think about how God’s love for you is holy – it’s set apart, unique, one of a kind. Then reflect on how God’s holiness has been expressed to you, for you, and in you. If you go deep with God, He will go deep with you. He will take you to places and give you revelation that will blow your mind, melt your heart, and strengthen your will.

2. Start “noticing” the things that happen to you, around you, within you – and ask God, “Is that You?” I love that word, “noticing.” To notice, in the spiritual sense, is to anticipate the activity of God in your “view-finder.” I am convinced that God reveals Himself in thousands of ways each day, but we miss them because we have not been trained to “notice” Him at work. When you notice something, like an unexpected blessing or a song that plays on the radio or witnessing a small act of grace or an insight to Scripture or a gentle breeze on a hot day, then pause, ask God the question (“Is that You?”), and move into that moment – just for a little while. It might be just the break the Holy Spirit was waiting for to get into your life and take you deep! Of course, this means we need to wean ourselves from our “busy-ness” and “urgencies” and “agendas” and technology (text messages, emails, alerts, games, etc.) that keep us so pre-occupied that we fail to notice the small, still things of God that come our way.

One of the things I “noticed” today was how some of the phrases in the song, “How Deep is Your Love,” can be perfectly descriptive of our relationship with God. So I close with these specially chosen lyrics and, instead of seeing it as a love song between two people (like Doug and Letty), make it a prayer of your desire to go deep with God.

I believe in You,

You know the door to my very soul,

You’re the light in my deepest, darkest hour

You’re my Savior when I fall.

How deep is Your love, how deep is Your love?

I really need to know …