02/03/2023
I often talk about how I feel regarding Jesus and my love for God, but today I am considering the love God has for us, and the reason for the love He feels for us. We know very well that God loves us, and the Bible is filled with scripture to that effect.
“Thus says the Lord: "The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”
Jeremiah 31:2-3 ESV
And then in the New Testament we are told in a manner that reflects on Jesus and His sacrifice. We read references that include this bold and often quoted scripture:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
John 3:16 KJV
But why does God love us? How did this love begin and to what end? First and foremost He loves us because that is His nature; God is the embodiment of love itself. He loves, and has loved us always, because He is love.
“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
1 John 4:8 ESV
He also loves us because we are His creation... His children. We are family to Himself, the Father, and to Jesus, the son. There are so many references to us as the children of God...
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”
1 John 3:1 ESV
He loves us because we are made in His image... we are like Him. In us He not only sees a creation but a reflection of Himself. When we stand before Him, at long last, we will see this plainly as well...
“Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”
1 John 3:2 ESV
We are so flawed that we find it hard to understand how God could love us. Perhaps this is exactly why He does love us... It defines Him. If He loves those who are so undeserving then in that act He reveals Himself in perfection.
“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?”
Matthew 5:46 ESV
So we search the mystery of God's love for us, but in all our searching, and in every fault we have, we never doubt that He does. The Psalmist sings of this wonderful nature of God's love in beautiful verse.
“It is he who remembered us in our low estate, for his steadfast love endures forever; and rescued us from our foes, for his steadfast love endures forever; he who gives food to all flesh, for his steadfast love endures forever.”
Psalms 136:23-25 ESV
In our undeserving state He loves us. He even loved us to the point of sending His son to die as sacrifice for us, and yet some can not love Him back... We should be filled to the brim with love for God and yet He waits for us to love Him. We should be singing songs of love to Him, and yet He waits to hear our voice.
This is our flaw, and we know it about ourselves. We write about it in poetry as Yeats did in expounding upon love unreturned in his poem "Never Give All the Heart", and we read it in novels such as "The Death of King Arthur" by Sir Thomas Malory. It is a weakness we have in which our love is proven imperfect; and yet God loves us despite it. He strives to perfect our love by filling us with His.
Prayer:
Father, teach me to love as you love me. Never let the intensity of my love for you fade; not even should night come to engulf me and I become blinded and cannot see your face. Lord, let me love you always; let me love you unto my passing, knowing that your love surrounds me there, and awaits for me without fraction on the far side of my last breath. Dear God, I raise you high above me, but in my lowly state of undeserving, I see your extended hand and hesitate to take it... for fear I might disappoint you. Yet your hand never falters and beckons me to take it even so. How is it Father that you can love me in my iniquity and despite my failures? How amazing is the unfathomable nature of your love. Heavenly Father, I give thanks for your steadfast love that endures forever.
Rich Forbes
“Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever.”
Psalms 136:26 ESV