FOUR FACTS ABOUT THE LOVE OF GOD

By Curtis Pugh

First of all the Bible teaches that the love God has for His own is an everlasting love. The Bible says: “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee,” (Jeremiah 31:3). Being everlasting means simply that God's love lasts forever: it never ceases! Also illustrated in this verse is the fact that God's love motivates Him to act in accordance with that love. His love for His chosen people, Israel, caused Him to draw them. Since Jesus said, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day,” (John 6:44), surely we may conclude that those whom the Father draws in a saving way to Christ are those whom He loves.

In His message to the congregation of the Laodiceans the Lord Jesus said: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent,” (Revelation 3:19). This truth is also stated in Hebrews 12:6 where it is written: “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” God shows His love for His children by child-training each one of them: He spanks His own children! Those who endure chastening or child-training know that it is not pleasant. Hebrews 12:11 says: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” God knows how to break the proud hearts of His children and bring them into loving submission to Him. And He does it.

While Romans 5:5 says, “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us,” this in no way means that all men have the love of God and the Holy Spirit within them. We know this because Jesus said, “But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you,” (John 5:42). Only those in whom the Spirit dwells are said to be “in the Spirit” and only these people are able to please God as Romans 8:9 says: “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” The Spirit, like the wind, is uncontrollable by men (see John 3:8).

The fourth thing about the love of God is this: because of God's love for His own, nothing can ever separate them from this love. “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” (Romans 8:38-39). Hallelujah!