God’s love is primarily towards His children. However, He also sees fit to show His love towards the unsaved. (Psalm 145:9 -- “The Lord is good to all.”) In Luke 6:35, God calls us to love our enemies and do good to all. In this way, we can be like Him, because He is kind on ungrateful and evil men.
Primarily, though, God’s love is towards His children. Here are seven aspects of God’s love, as known by the Christian:
- God is love. The description of God and the description of God’s love (1 Cor. 13) are the same. God is sovereign; His love is sovereign. God is unchangeable; His love is unchangeable. God is perfect; His love is perfect, and so on…
- God’s love flows through Jesus Christ to His people. Read through Ephesians 1, and see how many times the blessings we enjoy are described as being “in Christ”. All that we enjoy of God as Christians is through His Son. How do we experience this love? By believing in Christ. It is all that is required of us, but it is required of us.
- The love of God does not begin with us. God’s love begins with Himself. We love Him because He first loved us.
Because of the three first points, the following aspects of God’s love are true: - The love of God in Christ Jesus is attracted by nothing in its object. We do not earn His love or do anything to make Him love us.
- The love of God cannot be repelled by anything that is in us. God loved us long before we knew Him. He loved us when we were still sinners. Now, as His children, when we stumble, He is not repelled by our sin; He will not leave us or forsake us.
- The love of God is not apportioned to His children by their fruitfulness. God loves all His children the same: He has a superabundance of love for us. He loves us all the same, all the time.
- God heals our backslidings. He pours His love out upon us, in the form of chastening, when we sin. In His love, He forgives us when we return to Him.
God’s love for us does not grow, but we can grow to know that love more. So we should come to God knowing that He loves us. We should make our prayers and requests known with His love for us in mind, and we should meditate much on the love that is ours in Christ.
