The Mis-understanding of God’s Love and the reality of it.

People ask where God’s love is when disasters happen, such as the Grenfell Tower. God’s love is not like human love, which starts and stops, people fall in love, marry and divorce. How sad that picture is – it is nothing like the love of 1 Corinthians 13, which is the exact opposite. Human love looks after itself, looks after number one.

God’s chosen example for His love for us is marriage. In the Old Testament God gives a shocking example of the marriage of Hosea, which describes the way God saw His people. It is a picture of what is happening in our world today. In the Old Testament the Jewish people were described as the adulterous wife of God, in the New Testament they are the Bride of Christ. Satan is trying to destroy the very image God is using to portray His love for us. Satan is at work, working against the church, destroying married life.

The reality of God’s love is demonstrated on the cross of the Lord Jesus. The only way you can understand the love of God is by looking at the cross, it is the starting place. In the event of you are not confident in your faith, if church has become a drudgery, if you’re losing your appetite for God, the place to go is the Easter story.

We have to return the love that is given to us. We love someone for what they do for us. We love the Lord Jesus for what He’s done for us and what He’s still doing for us.

‘And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ (Mark 12:30).

‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.’ (Ezekiel 36:26).

‘Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the loving God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.’ (2 Corinthians 3:3).

Our love comes from within us. God has given those who trust in Him, a new heart. We need to tell Him we love Him. Let’s return the love that has been showered upon us. The cross as a symbol will stand the test of time. God’s love doesn’t start and stop, He doesn’t divorce us. The Prodigal Son is about a father waiting for his son to come home, waiting to embrace him.

Here is love, vast as the ocean,
Loving-kindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom,
Shed for us His precious blood.
Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten,
Throughout heav’n’s eternal days.

On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above,
And heav’n’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.

William Rees

Tell the Lord how much you love Him. Thank Him for what He has done for you. Let His love become a reality for you.