Monday, February 14, 2022

           The love we find in God is perfect love.  No love is greater.  It is sufficient love.  His love lacks nothing.  It is expressed love.  God shows His love to us.  It is unconditional love.  Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this way: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Certainly, no human has done anything to deserve or earn this incredible love that God offers to us.  Indeed, the opposite is true. Based on how we live, we have done nothing to earn or deserve any expression of love from God.  Yet, we are blessed, indeed showered, by His great love.  Paul wrote that the love of God was utterly beyond the human capacity to measure or weigh it.  Ephesians 3:18-19 says, “[you] may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”  Humanly speaking, we will never fully, or even adequately, describe the love that we find and experience in God. 
            What can we take away from the reality of God’s love?  How does the reality of His love impact our lives from day to day?  Let me suggest five truths we can count on.  First, God’s love does not fade away.  We never have to worry that God will cease to love us over the course of our lives.  His love is not a little more or a little less from one day to the next.  His love is constant and consistent.  It is not subject to whims or emotions.  God loved you while you were sinning against Him before salvation and He loves you when you serve Him as a follower of Christ.  Second, God’s love is foundational.  The world may mistreat you.  Other people may harm or deny you.  Friends or family leave you hurt and disappointed.  But God’s love is the shelter or reality to which you can return each day.  When you wake up in the morning, let your first thoughts be of God and the predictable and unchanging love that will accompany you throughout the adventures of the day.
            Third, God’s love is comprehensive.  He loves all of you.  Not just the good things about you or the images you may create for others to see.  He loves YOU.  We often think we have to give people a reason to love us.  And we can easily spend lots of energy, time and money to capture someone’s love and attention.  But with God, we already possess His love.  We do not have to do anything to win His affection.  Fourth, God’s love does not change based upon our behavior.  We may reject Him and disobey Him but He still loves us.  We may run from Him or distance ourselves, just like Jonah did, but He still loves us and pursues us.  God does not decide the level of His love based on our most current forms of behavior.  If divine love were based on merit, we would all be in trouble.
            And finally, God’s love seeks to draw us into the family of faith.  God loves us so much that He sent His Son to be the perfect Savior we most desperately needed (John 3:16).  God’s love seeks the best for us.  And the best is to know His Son Jesus in a personal way.  Any good and loving earthly father would always want the best for his children.  That reality is even more true for our heavenly Father.  Matthew 7:9-11 says, “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or, if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”  God’s love seeks to draw us out of the world of stones and snakes and into a relationship with Him.  No matter what happens today, you will be able to face everything with the certainty of God’s love for you.  Have a great Monday!