God is Love
Love is such an important need in our lives that I often wonder if almost every one of our activities can actually be explained as an effort to preserve, enhance, or pursue love in some way.
We learn at a young age that it seems people love us more when we perform well, serve them, or benefit them in some way. So we set out to earn their love, maintain their love, or to make them love us more.
I’ve actually known adults who are still trying to earn their parents’ love and yearn for them to just say the words, “I love you and am proud of you.”
Of course, it’s not just with parents. We’ll go to great lengths sometimes to feel like we are truly loved by spouses, friends, co-workers, and even complete strangers.
In what ways are you pursuing or trying to preserve love in your own life?
Maybe it’s not so much with other people but with God. You wonder if He loves you. If He doesn’t, then is there anything that you can do to earn His love? If He does love you, are there things you have to do to preserve that love, or are there things that you can do to make Him love you more?
What do we know about God’s love?
God is Love
1 John 4:8 tells us that God is love.
That is obviously good news, but the question for us in this day and age is this: “What does that really mean?” I mean in this culture we say things like, “I love pizza, video games, movies, and Netflix.”
Well one of the things we know about God is that He is holy (Exodus 15:11). God is set apart and distinct from His creation. He is high and exalted far above us in infinite majesty and glory.
So, when we talk about God’s love, it’s a holy love. God’s love is infinite. His love is far beyond and better than the kind of love we see and experience in the world.
As a matter of fact, when the apostle Paul was praying for the people in the church at Ephesus, he prays that they would grasp how wide, long, high, and deep God’s love is and that they would know this love that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:18-19).
God’s love is so big that you and I can’t even fully comprehend it. His love runs so deep that it will never leave us feeling empty on the inside.
The only completely fulfilling and satisfying love that is out there is God’s love. Everything else pales in comparison to it.
God’s Love is Unconditional
Perhaps the most famous verse in the entire world is John 3:16 which says, 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. When John says “whoever,” he meant whoever. No strings attached.
All throughout the gospels you can read about Jesus hanging out with and loving thieves, liars, thugs, the sexually promiscuous, and even murderers. His love is unconditional.
God can’t love you any more or any less than He does right now in this moment.
God’s Love is Sacrificial
One of the first places we see this is in the incarnation. God in the flesh (John 1:1, 14).
It was sacrificial for Jesus to take on a human nature. As God, He wasn’t subject to all the things we experience on this planet as human beings: hunger, thirst, tiredness, pain, etc.
He sacrificed His right to not have to experience those things. Why? To seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). How would He do that? By sacrificing His life for us on the cross!
The purchase price to rescue you from your sin was death, and it was not too big of a price for God to pay.
Do you know how much you are loved? How much you are worth to God? You are worth the life of His Son!
Conclusion
God is love, and His love is available to you no matter who you are, where you’ve been, or what you’ve done. It’s even offered to you as a gift, but just like any gift, you must receive it. You receive God’s love through faith.
When you place your faith in Jesus for salvation, He will pour Himself and His love into you through the Holy Spirit and be with you forever.
If you’ve received God’s love, learn to rest in it and give it away. Jesus fills you up with His love so that you don’t have to keep spending all your time and effort looking for it and are now free to rest in it and give it away!
Keep your eyes on Him and He’ll open up opportunities to express His love through you so that others can receive it as well!