God is Love

        
We often hear the word LOVE being used by those around us and often use it ourselves to convey how we feel about someone. My wife and I would not dream of laying our heads down to go to sleep without saying these words to each other. My daughters always end a phone conversation or when leaving to go somewhere with the words I Love you. I don't doubt their feelings because I've spent most of my life with them, but how often do we see that love turns into something else? We know that more than 50% of all marriages which began with love end in hate. Friendships which blossomed with love have ended with much hurt and strife. Children killing parents, siblings who have not spoken in thirty years, it has been going on since time as we know it began; Cain killing Abel without remorse. The human enigma that really is no mystery at all, SIN; I know no one wants to talk about it, much less read about it.

It is my opinion, and I shall back up it up by scripture, that our failure as humans is due to not understanding the Love of God and twisting it into something that more suits what we think it is.

God's love is Infinite!
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear him.
(Psalm 103:11)KJV


God's love is unfathomable!
So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that ye may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
(Ephesians 3:17-19) KJV




God's love is eternal!
Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting.
(Psalm 136:1) KJV

The LORD appeared to him from afar, saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.
(Jeremiah 31:3) KJV


God's love is changeless!
Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow.
(James 1:17) KJV



God's love is Holy!
Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be Holy and blameless before Him, in love.
(Ephesians 1:4) KJV


God's love is sacrificial!
By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
(I John 4:9-10) KJV


God's love is selective!
You did not chose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you.
(John 15:16) KJV.


God's love isn't given to us because we are beautiful or good; He has chosen to love us in spite of our miserable condition. But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8) KJV

As a Christian chosen by God I can come to an understanding that He loves me with an infinite love that I cannot begin to fathom. He will always love me and his love will never change. His love is Holy and has already sacrificed His most precious Son so He could love me forever.

Since we know that God was before everything and that He created all things and we also know God is Love then the love we received with which to love others is from God. What happened then that made us so unlovable? Why can't we love like God? Must I say it again? SIN.

So, what is the answer to our dilemma?

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.1 John 4:7-11 KJV

Please reread the above verse again and meditate on it for a few minutes, it is one of those life changing truths from the heart of God. We are not just told we are supposed to love one another, we are commanded to by none other than our Savior himself. These things I command you, that ye love one another. (John 15:17) KJV



Still can't find room in your heart to love, even knowing you have been commanded to? Fortunately for you, you have a God who understands this condition, who has dealt with it for thousands of years.


I too suffered from this condition of sin for many years. As a young boy growing up I developed a deep hatred for someone and this hatred grew and infected my relationships with others to the point that if anyone did something to hurt or disappoint me I couldn't find it in my heart to forgive them. After accepting Christ as my Lord and Savior and praying for Him to show me why I couldn't love or forgive the people who had done something to hurt me, He showed me how I had let my hate harden my heart and how sinful I had let it become in my life. Christ showed me how to pray for the person I hated and learn how to truly love again.

I would challenge the reader who has allowed his heart to become hardened to take the time to give it to Christ and watch as He shows you how to find comfort and peace, to find that place where you are walking with the true love of God again.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. I Corinthians 13:1-8 RSV


Bob Goulding © August 2006


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