The Love of God
02.15.23
But God demonstrated His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
Valentine’s Day was yesterday. I met my bride in the registration line at college. I saw her from afar with delight. I soon asked her out, but she already had plans for that event. She gave me a rain check, but it would be a couple of years before I would have the courage (and she the good sense) to have our first date. It was worth the wait! Although, it was an unusual date. Her family lived about an hour away from our college, and her mother just happened to visit the school that evening, so, the more the merrier. As it was, I was able to get acquainted with my future mother-in-law, an excellent woman.
The love that a man has for his wife is only a tiny mirror image of the love that God has for mankind. Our text explains that God’s love for us is not merited. We have nothing to commend ourselves to God. We are ‘without strength’—we cannot love God on our own, nor please Him by our efforts. We are ‘ungodly’—we are not naturally like God, we do not love God, in fact we are the enemies of God. We are ‘sinners’—full of sin, incapable of not sinning, totally unable to do anything about our sin. In this hopeless state, Christ died for us!
God loves us. He does not merely pity us or have compassion on our wretched state. He is not only tender to us, as we might be to our pet dog. Rather, He loves us with a sacrificial, incomprehensible love.
Note who it is that loves us—God: the only God, the most High God, the Ruler of the Universe, the King of Kings, the thrice-holy One. And the proof of His love is that Jesus died for sinners on the Cross.
Consider with me some of the characteristics of His love. It is self-created and self-sustaining. It springs from Him alone and His sovereign will. It comes because of His Son, and not because of us or anything that He sees in us. It never changes because He never changes. It continues not because of anything we do or say, but because of Who He is.
His love is unbounded. The ocean has a shore and the created universe has an end somewhere. Our emotions have limits but God’s love is limitless. It has no bounds because He is eternal and immortal.
The love of God is unsleeping. Even the most loving of mothers needs to sleep sometimes, though her child would wake again and again. God never sleeps, gets fatigued or exhausted. He never faints or is weary.
God’s love is unfailing. The earth will one day be dissolved and the heavens will roll back like a scroll but God’s love will shine on into eternity.
Do you know this love? Have you experienced it? There is only one way to do so and that is by repenting of your sin, and trusting alone in the risen Savior who shed His blood at Calvary for all, for you.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)