How Powerful Is God’s Love for Us?

April 30, 2020
God-in-Christ, God's Love

Love is a very powerful force, an innate motivator that can start, build, and maintain many types of relationship. Love can be captivating, inconsistent, conditional, and even tragic. Sometimes without warning, love can grip and hold us, then cause us to act in ways that make us appear to be blind and virtually powerless. Even the most stable person can fall in and out of love.

When considering such fluctuations in human love, we may find ourselves wondering about the stability of God’s love. Is it different than our typical love? How powerful is God’s love; can it be gained or lost? What assures us that our heavenly Father’s love is more powerful, stable and dependable than our wavering love?

God’s Powerful Love

Our assurance is found in the many ways Scripture describes God. One of the first is; “I Am Who I Am” (a). [see end notes for Scriptures] This is explained in phrases like this: “Without beginning or end (b), always present (c), all-powerful (d), all knowing (e), and invisible to the natural eye (f).” God is not limited to or contained by this natural world’s inconsistencies.

God is not limited to this natural world’s inconsistencies.

As mere humans, how can we actually perceive or even comprehend love from such a One? We do so in degrees, by experiencing God and expressions of His love. The apostle John congealed the essence of God’s Spirit as “the Spirit of Light and Love” (g).

Love one another, for love is from God; God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him…for God is love (I John 4:7-8, 16).

Actually, our Creator “is” the originating source of all relational love. God’s love for us, as His offspring, is what births us into this life (h). And His love, as much as we allow, is what sustains us through our life process (i). Every person has the ability to receive and express love because the ‘spirit of life’ in each of us comes from God.

God is not limited to this natural world’s inconsistencies.

A Relational Force

The presence of God is always near us. How can anyone know this? The spirit in each person can sense the love of God’s Spirit. It is the spiritual side of our senses that enables us to actually see, taste, touch and feel the realities of spirit (j).

God’s love is a relational force that is beyond science.

God’s love is a relational force that is beyond the ability of science to explain because science is the study of nature and natural elements. While the effects of spirit on our natural life can be observed and measured, spirit is beyond natural sight or scientific examination.

While everyone is loved by God, as offspring, His desire for us is to know and relate to Him as our loving Father (k). When we respond to God with the admiration of loving children, we allow Him to transform us into better reflections and resemblances of His love (l). The following passage describes the actions and beneficial qualities of God’s type of love.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous…does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered…rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).

God’s love is a relational force that is beyond science.

Powerful Savior

Some tend to say; “We were once enemies of God and because of Calvary, we can become His friends,” as though a sacrificial death was needed to reconcile God to us. Really? God has never looked at us as enemies, we are His kids. The Calvary event was not to reconcile God to us. He has never been the problem, we are. All we, like sheep, have gone astray (m).

God’s love forgives our erroneous past and wants to reconcile us to Him.

The first Garden error caused fear to enter Adam, who then assumed God was against him. Rather than repent (put off the old way) and partake of love’s forgiving grace; in man’s mind, God became an enemy. We’ve been busy ever since trying to appease Him. We forget; God disdains sin, not the sinner!

Calvary illustrated God’s all-encompassing love, declaring He forgives ‘the whole world,’ all of us (n). This is why Jesus and the Father are identified as “the” powerful savior of all mankind (o). God’s love forgives our erroneous past and wants to reconcile us to Him (p). He has never been angry with us, just saddened that we ignore His fatherly guidance.

God’s love forgives our erroneous past and wants to reconcile us to Him.

Inseparable, Comprehensive Love

Forgiveness has always been in God’s heart, as a restoring characteristic of His love. God wants us to repent and receive His guidance so He can save us from our misconceptions and destructive way of life. When Israel of old refused to personally interact with the presence of God, He gave them a system of priests and sacrifices as a substitute until they would accept His personal presence ‘with and among’ them (q).

Yes, we can ignore God’s love and even run from it. His love however, is so vast, it appears to be unsearchable (r). So, can anything separate us from the inseparable love of God?

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:35, 38-39).

Did you notice how comprehensive this is? Not even death (our earthly end) can remove us from God’s forgiving love. This is why most near death experiences for believers and non-believers alike describe a sense of light and love like they never knew in this life.

Not even death can remove us from God’s forgiving love.

Over-riding God’s Love is Impossible

Jesus described God’s love in these words; Love your enemies…bless those who curse you…and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful (s). Remember God’s love “does not take into account a wrong suffered” (t). You can count on it!

God’s love is infinitely better than man’s love. Our sinful ways are not able to sidetrack or over-ride the constancy of God’s powerful love for us (u).

Not even death can remove us from God’s forgiving love.

One Hymn expounds on God’s love with these words: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies shall never come to an end, they are new every morning, new every morning, great is thy faithfulness O Lord, great is thy faithfulness.”

God’s all-inclusive and never-ending love is ours for the taking! We really can live daily in His refreshing love. If you are not thriving in the steadfast love of the Lord; what is holding you back?

We can thrive daily in God’s steadfast love. 

a) Exodus 3:14; b) 1 Timothy 1:17; 6:16; c) Psalm 139:7; d) Job 11:7; Jeremiah 32:17; e) Psalm 139:1-4; f) 2 Corinthians 4:18; g) 1 John 1:1-5; 4:8-10; h) Job 31:15; Jeremiah 1:5; i) 1 John 4:18; j) Hebrews 5:14; Psalm 32:8; k) John 1:12; 14:6; l) Romans 12:2; Ephesians 4:20-24; m) Isaiah 53:6; Romans 3:23; n) 1 John 2:2; o) Titus 3:4-6; 1 Timothy 4:10; p) Romans 3:25-26; 5:8, 10; q) Exodus 25:8; Numbers 5:3; 35:34; 1 John 1:3; r) Romans 11:32-36; s) Luke 6:27-28, 35-36; t) 1 Corinthians 13:5; u) Romans 3:3; 9:15-16

Keith Carroll, “The Relationship Guy”
Relational Gospel Founder
Created To Relate author
http://bit.ly/KeithCarrollBooksAmazon

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