Have you ever pondered about God’s love for us? His everlasting, unfailing love. The love that crafted and designed us, knitted us together in our mother’s womb. That picked us out for Himself as His own before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, consecrated and set apart for Him, and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love.
With more people alive on the earth today than there has ever been before in the whole of history, God still took the time to craft my very existence because He loves me. Yet in our modern culture and Western society, do we truly understand the purity and source of His love, when all round us is love is displayed as ‘eros’, erotic love, based on beauty awakened by soulish desire. A love that strives for acceptance. A love that fades as the beauty fades. A love that has to be earned by pleasing others and craves acceptance.
And yet we can’t earn His love. It’s unconditional.
‘If God loves us to the degree that we please Him, then we are forever in doubt concerning His love toward us. And if we believe that we have attracted His love by our behaviour, we are filled with pride and congratulate ourselves that we, unlike others, have achieved the kind of life that makes us His beloved.’ (Malcolm Smith, The Power of the Blood Covenant)
God says:
I’ve never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love! Jeremiah 31:3 (Message).
His love is for us, not against us. It is ever-expanding and advancing. He piles love upon love upon love without measure. Try to image that. His love for us is only ever-increasing!
We are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first. 1 John 4:19 (Message)
God loves us despite our actions. In the garden of Eden, He came looking for Adam and Eve. Even though they did something He requested them not to, He still sort a relationship with them. Even though they submitted to another god who spoke half-truths and twisted the words of God, God still wanted to be with Adam and Eve.
As God moved in the garden, searching for His creation, they hid from His presence. Was it the fact that they had done something wrong that made them unable to be in the very presence of God?
I love what Psalms 139 says about the great dimension of God’s presence. And wherever He is we will find His love.
Where could I go from Your Spirit? Or where could I flee from Your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol (the place of the dead), behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me and the night shall be [the only] light about me, Even the darkness hides nothing from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You.
For You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are Your works, and that my inner self knows right well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret [and] intricately and curiously wrought [as if embroidered with various colors] in the depths of the earth [a region of darkness and mystery]. Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them.
How precious and weighty also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I could count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awoke, [could I count to the end] I would still be with You. Psalm 139 AMP
Even though God knew Adam and Eve decided to change the god they served, submitting to another authority and ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, He still pursued after them. He knew where they were, yet called after them, seeking to re-establish relationship with them.
God is love. He loves us because He is love. He is the source of love. He radiates love because it’s His nature. It’s His DNA and therefore it’s our DNA too as we are made in His image. Just as He is the Father of lights, He radiates His love.
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, 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.
No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. 1 John 4:8-16
