God is love. (I Jn 4:8)
His love endures forever…His love endures forever…His love endures forever. (Ps 136)
Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. (Mic 7:18)
God on high, can the angels in heaven comprehend your love? Is there any end to it? How can I, full of sin and rebellion against you, quick to ignore your voice and heed my own inclinations ¾ how can I possibly know your love? Yet you love me! Oh glorious fact! And you forgive my ugly sin! Thank you. Oh thank you.
Now we get to talk about the part of God that everyone likes to talk about — the love of God. If you have heard anything about the Christian God, then you know that He is full of love and compassion. And praise Him, for it is true! Last week I said that God’s judgment against sin is on virtually every page of the Bible. This week I say that His boundless love is also on virtually every page of the Bible. Even when God judges, He loves. All the way back in Genesis, God sent a curse for sin but covered Adam and Eve with His sacrifice (Gen 3:8-21). In Noah’s day, God judged the world, but if you were to ask Noah if God loved, he would reply with a thundering “yes,” for he was the recipient of that love. God showed His love to Israel while she was in Egypt. Amazingly, He kept delivering His people during the times of the judges, when they spit in His face again and again. He showed His love to Moses, to Samuel, to Ruth, to Hannah, to David, to Solomon, to Isaiah, to Jeremiah, to Daniel, to Mary, to Peter, to Paul. And He continues to show His love to you and me today. He does this because it’s who He is. God so loved the world that He gave His only son (Jn 3:16). God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rm 5:8). You cannot escape the love of God. Even when you sin, He loves you. The love of God is what makes life worth living. Remove it from earth and earth would be hell. To know that God is for us and is working for our good is enough to cheer the most despondent heart. You may feel that no one cares, but you are wrong. God loves.
In fact, God is love (I Jn 4:8). Tozer helps us understand this statement by explaining that it does not mean that God is some impersonal force. We do not worship love, and God never intends us to. Rather, the Scripture is speaking as we sometimes do when we say, “Dora is grace in action,” or “Robin is the picture of faith.” God is love perfectly, but love is not our God.
The love of God means that God is passionately looking out for our best interests. It means God has affection for us. We are not just pawns on a chessboard or file number 13479. God has feelings for us. He wants our good; He wants us to know Him; He wants to share with us from His bounty. To God we are children, not clients. God is not a cold force but a warm affectionate person.
He is love, but He is not love in the abstract. He loves you. He loves me. And the amazing thing about such love is that you and I have rebelled against Him. We are not people who are naturally friendly to God. The Bible describes us in our unconverted state as enemies (Rm 5:10). But God still loves us. The depravity of the human race magnifies the love of God. The better we think ourselves, the less we understand God’s love. Ironically, many who talk about God’s love have precious little grasp of it. Some think too highly of themselves; some think of God’s love as a type of human right, and it is precisely when we think we deserve God’s love that we miss it. His love then ceases to amaze. But when we see that we deserve wrath, the Cross astounds us. Praise God! He is willing to forgive. Even me.
God’s love sacrifices. “Greater love has no one than this,” Jesus said, “that he lay down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15:13) “Love is not self-seeking.” (I Cor 13:5) Love desires the good of someone else so greatly that it will sacrifice its own desires and comforts to bring about that good. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.” (Jn 3:16) The ultimate expression of the love of God is found in Jesus Christ. His sacrificial death and resurrection is the pinnacle of the revelation of God’s love. Those events show God paying a great price for our best interests. People who deny the Atonement and Resurrection strip the power out of God’s love. They change the passionate sacrifice of God’s love into a lukewarm feeling. Divine love becomes human love. They remove God’s laying down His life yet think they somehow have a greater love. We cheapen the love of God when we deny the Cross, but we fully declare it every time we take communion and proclaim His death till He comes.
One of the wondrous things about life is that we, too, can love. Because we are created in God’s image, we have the capacity to love, but since we are finite and fallen creatures, our love is limited and imperfect, even tainted. Nonetheless, God, as the fountainhead of love, is the foundation of all legitimate human loves. An ungodly woman may have a love for her husband and children. Even that kind of love “is of God.” Some of the other desires and motives mixed in with her love may have a different source, but the love itself could not exist without God. Take Him away and all legitimate human loves disappear as well. We cannot love without God.
And so … God has a passionate desire for our well-being. This desire is warm, tender-hearted, and drives Him to make the ultimate sacrifice for us. It allows us to trust Him in all things and to serve Him from the heart as a son or a daughter. It provides great comfort, great joy, even in the midst of suffering, for we know that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
