Divine Appointments: A love that is beyond telling

There are four characteristics of God’s love (and we give you two of them).
1. God’s love is unconditional
In the world around us, people are loved on the basis of their performance. When someone pleases us, when someone stimulates us, we appreciate what they do and use the term “love” to describe our response.
But God’s love is not based on our performance! God’s love, instead, is unconditional. Consider Romans 5:6-8: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.
Christ died for us when?
Was he responding to something good in our performance?
Was he saying, “Oh, so and so is such a fine man! Look at all he has accomplished! Because he has been so good, I will shower my love on him?” No, not at all! These verses use the words “powerless,” “ungodly”, and “sinners” to describe us. Christ died for people like this, not for people who look like they have it all together.
So why did God love us? God’s love is based only on his sovereign choice; God’s love is based only on his mercy.
Consider also two verses that highlight this point: “The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers”. (Deuteronomy 7:7, NIV) And, “He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will”. (Ephesians 1:4, NIV)
Nothing made us attractive to God! On the contrary, we were despicable to God. But despite our problems it was God’s pleasure, it was God’s will to predestine us to be adopted as his sons.
So God’s love is unconditional because it is the result of his sovereign choice. God’s love has nothing to do with our goodness; God’s love has nothing to do with our performance.
Now I don’t know about you, but to me this truth is tremendously freeing. I don’t have to look over my shoulder all the time, wondering if God is going to abandon me because I blew it. I don’t have to worry that God might change his mind about me because of my poor performance. God already knows the worst about me — and He chose to love me! God’s love is unconditional — delight in that statement.
2. God’s love is from everlasting to everlasting
In a moment of intense feeling, we say, “I will love you forever!” — yet within years, or months, or even weeks, those feelings change, and we so often renege on our promises.
What about God’s love? Consider these verses from Psalm 103: “As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children”.
The Psalmist compares our lives to flowers that dry up and are gone. Human love is like that too; love that we promise to last forever may disappear in a very short time. But God’s love is “from everlasting to everlasting”. What does this mean?
“From everlasting to everlasting” can mean “from the beginning of time to time without end.” As the verse in Ephesians puts it, God showed his love for us by choosing us “before the creation of the world”.
So, from the very beginning of time, God has loved you. And this will continue for all eternity, as we share in His glory, in His beauty, praising Him in His presence for ages and ages. Think about this: there never was a time when God did not love you; there will never be a time when God does not love you.
Yet “from everlasting to everlasting” can refer not only to the time dimension but also to the relational dimension. He is, after all, your creator, the one who formed you, the one who knit you together in your mother’s womb.
He loved you when you were the product of the joining together of a sperm and an egg, and he has nurtured and cultivated this relationship with you until now. And on and on into eternity, He will continue to nurture and cultivate this relationship, so that you will know Him better and better, so that you will see Him face to face, so that this love relationship will flourish and bear fruit in unimagined ways. God’s love is from everlasting to everlasting.
So God’s love is unconditional, and from everlasting to everlasting. But in between the beginning of time and our joining Him in his heavenly kingdom, could His love fail?
We have only touched on two wonders of God’s love, this love that is: unconditional and from everlasting to everlasting. God’s love also never fails; And. God’s love is for US individually.
So, Christians: Have you allowed the world’s view of love to colour your vision of God? Have you been struggling, fearing that your poor performance as a Christian will cause God to quit loving you?
Have you been fearing that God’s love will change, or have you felt that the difficulty of your circumstances show that God does not love you? Have personal trials and tragedies made you doubt God’s love, strength, and faithfulness?
Consider the verses on God’s love; meditate on the list, pray over it. As the Psalmist says: “Whoever is wise, let him heed these things and consider the great love of the Lord”. (Psalm 107:43) Be wise. Heed these things. Consider God’s great love. Or is all this foreign to you? Do you not know the love of Christ? John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life”.
The invitation is open to you. Believe in Him, ask Him to be your Saviour and Lord; repent and turn to Him, and He will welcome you into His loving arms. Consider the great love of the Lord — and respond.
l This is an abridged version of a sermon by Coty Pinckney, preached at Community Bible Church, Williamstown in Massachusetts, USA on June 19, 1994, courtesy of http://tcpiii.tripod.com.
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Theme: Exodus 35:31; Ephesians 4:12
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Time: 3pm-5pm
Speaker: Pastor Paul
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“Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away”. (Song of Solomon 8:7, NIV)