The Love of God

I’d like to share a few thoughts with you about the love of God. There is a Scripture that simply says, “God is love” (1 John 4). Love is at the core of who God is. His very nature is love. God’s word also tells us that God, “is not far from any one of us, for in him we live and move and exist…” (Acts 17:27-28)

A very significant and powerful world view paradigm shift takes place as we let the truth of these two Scriptures sink in. I mean, this is a radical, life changing truth!

Think about it. If God is love, and in him we live and move and exist, then we are in this very moment immersed in love. We are surrounded on every side by love, by God. God permeates everything… everywhere… everything, that is, except what exactly? Are there any exceptions? Perhaps the space in our own person?

God is the creator. The entire universe, seemingly infinite in size, cannot contain God. God’s word tells us that nothing exists in all the universe apart from him and his willing it to exist, for he created all things.

“All things are made by him and for him” (Colossians 1).

You and I are made by God, for God; we were made by love, for love. Isn’t that amazing to think we were created by a loving being just to be loved?

This is only thing that ultimately offers us any meaning and purpose in this life. Only In the love of God.

I have often asked:

• Just how close does God want to get?
• How intimate a relationship – friendship does he desire?
• Just how loved are we?

How would you like to be loved the way you always dreamed of being loved? How would you like to be cherished, valued and adored just for being you? The reason we want to be loved and treasured like this is because we were made to be loved and treasured like this – by God.

Remember this, We are made by a God who’s very core and essence is love, who is the source of all love. And we were made to be  loved. We live and move and exist in love. You are deeply loved by God and that changes everything. As a song lyric says, “If grace was an ocean, then we’re all sinking”.

God is love… but sadly, we are not. Though we are made in his image, Humanity is bankrupt when it comes to love.

This is why God gave us his law of love, to show us that we don’t know how to love others, we don’t know how to love God, and we don’t even know how to love ourselves. Why else do we treat each other like shit? Why else do we ignore God and his loving commands and words to us? Why else do we pursue self destruction with smoking, drinking, or porn? And why do we give the best parts of ourselves and our best years to money, sex, and entertainment, etc…?

But, though we are bankrupt when it comes to love, God holds out hope and salvation to us. He provides redemption through the rescuer and savior of the entire human race, Jesus (whose name literally means, “I AM your salvation” or “I AM your savior”).  He is our hero – the protagonist – in this often painful human drama

No longer is it about us and our “love bankrupt” lives. No longer is it about us trying hard enough to please God, to earn his acceptance, to somehow win the Almighty’s favor. No, now it all about our hero Jesus and what he has accomplished on our behalf.

The focus now becomes Jesus and the perfect holy life of love he lived and the cross where he suffered more than we will ever know for all of our bad living, all our unlove, and ungrace.

It’s now about the cross where he achieved the tremendous victory over sin accomplishing through his sacrifice more than we will ever know.

It’s now about how he rose from death and conquered the power of death. He overcame all that separates us from God.

And it’s now about how all these things, his holy life of love, his death on the cross, his resurrection come to have their significance in our lives as we place our trust in him.

Jesus now, with all his heart, offers everything to you. He gives you his victory over sin. He gives you his perfect love to live in your heart by his very own presence through the Holy Spirit. He now offers you paradise forever, that you might eternally be discovering the glories of his infinite love.

So what’s required of us to get in on all of this? Simple trust. We believe. We believe what God says and we receive him by faith. We believe that he really is that good, and that we can trust him for everything.

It means having the courage, and I know, sometimes it takes an enormous amount of courage to accept your acceptance when you feel so unworthy. Maybe you even think that God is better off without you. God’s heart breaks for you to know that you are already accepted by him.

Your acceptance is not on the basis of your own merit, but solely on the basis of Jesus merit. It’s based on his cross, on his blood which he gladly shed for you – all for just the chance, just the chance, to know you, and to love you.

So here is what I’m going to ask that you would do in response to all of this. Would you pray with me?

“Jesus, you are famous for your mercy, grace and love. In you alone is the perfection of grace and truth. Your word tells us that you are God, the savior of the world. I believe. Save me. Rescue me.

May I come to experience your love, to fully grasp that you love me. I want to know that love that prompted you to die for me, for my sin. And to experience you as the one who created me for love. Thank you for loving me and accepting me. Thank you God that I don’t have to earn your love but that I get to just embrace and receive it.

Please clear my head of all the false notions of who you are that keep me from knowing you as you really are. Reveal your mercy and love to me Jesus . Reveal yourself to me.”