There is a love that is so great that a new word had to be created to describe such a great love. The only words for love were words that meant a “because of” love. The greatest love in the world is a love that is unconditional and a love that is undeserved. It is a love that can not be earned but can only be received as a gift. It is a love that comes purely from the lover and the recipient can only receive it. It is freely given and there is nothing that compares with it.
Your lovingkindness, O Lord, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Psalm 36:5a
God’s love can never be exhausted. His love extends to the heavens and is a love that reached down from the heavens. It is offered to everyone who has ever lived under the heavens. His love is unchangeable. God’s love is unconditional, meaning it is not conditional on you because it does not come from you. God is love and He loves because He is love. His love is called “agape” love. It is a sacrificial love that is offered to anyone and everyone. It is a gift. It is a love that God gave through giving His Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty and take the punishment for your sins and mine.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16
The perfect Son of God, Jesus Christ, who had never sinned, took the sin of the world so that we might have life. Not just life in this world but life in the world to come, life for all eternity. God did not make man to die. God made man to live and to have a relationship with Him.
I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10b
The gift of His Son made it possible to know and experience His great love. Christ died for us that He might bring us to God.
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; I Peter 3:18
God loved us when we did not love Him. Jesus Christ died for us when we were most undeserving. Jesus Christ did not die for good people but He died for sinners.
For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8
However, to experience this great love we must receive it. It is a gift but like every gift it is not ours until we receive it. Love is a choice. Just as God chose to love us, we also must choose to receive His love.
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, John 1:12
When we receive the gift of His love through receiving Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior then we become God’s child. We become adopted into His family and God becomes our Father.
See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. I John 3:1a
When we receive the gift of God’s love through receiving His Son, Jesus Christ, then Jesus Christ becomes our Friend and our Brother.
I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. John 15:15b
but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God. John 20:17b
The evidence that we have been born again into God’s family is that we will want to be with the Lord through being in His Word. It is through His Word that He speaks to our heart. When we spend time with God then we will want to talk to Him through prayer. Spending time in the Word of God and prayer is how we grow in our relationship with the Lord.
like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, I Peter 2:2
The outcome of having a relationship with God is that we will want to do what He says. That is what it means to obey Him. We will do what He says in His Word and then we will experience and grow in His great love for us. When we live in His love then we will want to love Him more. When we love Him more than we want to obey Him more. It is a beautiful relationship of growing in the greatest love that has ever been offered to everyone. It is a love that seeks your good, a love that is undeserved and never changes. It is a love that can’t be lost nor can not be exhausted. It is a love that can only be experienced to know the reality of it.
I hope that today you will come into this amazing relationship with God through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. To receive Jesus Christ then you must call upon Him, tell Him your need of Him and ask Him to come into your life and make you into the person that He wants to. That is the person that you long to be. He takes your issues, your baggage, your sins, your guilt, your past and He gives you forgiveness, He cleanses you on the inside and He gives you life and a future.
that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.” Romans 10:9-11
