The Love of God

1 John 4:8 tells us that God is love.  Many of us know His love on a personal basis because we have experienced it and we know it.  Others, however, have experienced His Love but just don’t recognize it as God’s love.  Because they have not had a personal experience with God they are not able to perceive His love for what it is.  Beloved hearts, today I have the distinct privilege of informing you that God loves you.  Yes, you.  First of all, God loves mankind.  When He created the very world that we live in, He had mankind in mind.  Has it ever occurred to you that the air that we breathe, the temperature range, the atmospheric pressure, the pH balance, the food source, water and everything on Planet earth are all just right just for man?  That’s God’s love for man.  Psalms 8:4 (KJV) asks a question about God and His love for mankind..

Psalm 8:4-6 (KJV)
4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?  

5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.  

6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

Not only does God love mankind in a general way, He loves each man and woman in a specific way.  Yes, God loves you.  Maybe no one has told you that you are loved lately.  Maybe someone has used the word love to you, then turned around and abused you.  Maybe someone said that they loved you, then turned around and loved all of your best friends behind your back.  The love word is misused so much that some people just don’t believe that it can be real.  But I’m here to tell you that God loves you with a true love.  Some of you may be thinking, “How can God love me like that?  He doesn’t even know me”.  Well, you should know that God knows you better than you know yourself.  He made you and He knows all about you.  As a matter of fact, he even has the hairs on your head numbered.

Luke 12:7 says:  But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

That means that even if you are bald He knew when the last one dropped out.

The Bible says in Ps. 139:16

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

This Scripture tells us that God saw you before you were born.  He actually recorded every day that was ordained for you in a book even before the days ever came to be.  So when I tell you that God knows you, He knows you.  And now listen, if He knows that much about you He knows the negative things as well.  He knows how much alcohol you’ve consumed.  He knows how much drugs you have taken.  He knows how many men and women that you have slept with that were not your husband or wife.  He knows every sin that you have ever committed.  He also knows that those sins will stand up against you at the Great White Throne on Judgement Day.  God knows that you are on your way straight to Hell if you don’t change your direction.  But in spite of all of the negative things that He knows about you, He still loves you.  He hates the sin, but He loves you.  Remember this though, although God knows how much time you have before your Judgment takes place, you don’t.  So, you may say, “I get it that God knows me, but where is the proof that He loves me?” Man’s love is conditional, but God’s love is unconditional. His love for you is not based on how cute and cuddly you are, whether you have rich chocolate skin or baby blue eyes.  He loves you because He loves you.

The proof of God’s love is not based on any of our circumstances or personal situations.  Some might say, “God doesn’t love me because I asked Him for a certain salary and I didn’t get it”.  Or they might say, “I asked Him for a certain kind of car and He didn’t give it to me.”  No, material things are not the proof of God’s love, although He does provide for His children.  Others may think about some of the trials and tribulations that they have experienced in their lives and see that as proof that God does not love them.  They might say, “If God really loved me my husband would not have walked off from me and left me with five little children to raise on my own.”  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Who do you think enabled you to make it in spite of what someone else did?  He loved you right through the trials.

There are those who might think that God loves some people more because they are such “good” people.  That can’t be the case because all of our righteousness is as filthy rags according to Isaiah 8:6.

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags;

Romans 3:23 tells us 

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

The clearest and most straight forward answer to whether or not God loves you is the fact that He sent His only Son to die for you so that you can avoid the Lake of Fire as punishment for your sins.  Everything else pales in comparison to this kind of love.  You may be familiar with one of the best known Scriptures in the Bible,  John 3:16, which says

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.

This Scripture is so true; it  describes exactly what God did. He sent Jesus to die for us because we were on our way to a burning Hell with no other options for redemption.  God does not love us because we are so lovable.  As a matter of fact, He loves us in spite of the fact that many of us are  very unlovable.  He sent His Son to die for us when we were in our most unlovable state. Romans 5:8 says

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

I know that in spite of all that I have said I haven’t told you why He loves us.  Well, I really wish I had an answer to the “WHY?” question, but I don’t.  He loves us because He loves us.  He made us in His image and He loves us.  Can we just be grateful, and show our gratitude by accepting His true love?  How many of you would allow your only child to die for someone else?  Not many.  But God’s love for us was so strong that He allowed His Son to become sin which was so horrible to Him that He could not even look upon His son while He was dying.  Yes, Jesus who never committed sin EVER! had to become sin so that He could pay a sin debt for us.  We couldn’t pay the debt that we owed.  No other person in existence could pay it except Jesus because we were all sinners.  But that matchless blood of Jesus Christ paid a debt that He did not owe for us who could not pay.  He freed us from the penalty of death by Hellfire.  He did it all because of the Love of God.

So, as I close, think about this:  God sent Jesus to die for you. All you have to do to avoid the Lake of Fire, which is the ultimate recompense for your sins, is to repent, turn from your wicked ways and accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Live for Jesus for the rest of your life and you can go to Heaven.  Get filled with the power of the Holy Ghost and with Him you can make it.  Easy as that.  Jesus took all of the hard work out of repentance so your part is easy.  Yet some people are so stubborn and so full of pride that, rather than accept their only way out, Jesus Christ,  they would rather go to the Lake of Fire by way of Hell.  I am convinced that one second in Hell will change anyone’s mind, but by then it will be too late.  One last word on this subject.  Don’t think for one moment that because God loves you and because He is love itself that He won’t allow you to choose to go to Hell.  He made you a free moral agent and He would never force you to go to Heaven against your will.  Your choice is to either choose Jesus and live or reject Jesus and die without God forever.  Jesus is the answer to your need for salvation.  Won’t you receive Him today?  God sent Jesus because He loves you.  Joshua 24:15 says

…choose you this day whom ye will serve…

Come on.  Let’s you and I accept the Love of God and go to Heaven together.  May God bless you to make the right choice.