Do you have a favorite quality or attribute of God? Or perhaps it’s the first thing you learned about God back in your Sunday School days. I remember early on learning that God is love. Basic info for a likely preschooler back then. There’s obviously much more to God, but this quality still embodies who he is.
And you likely recall that 1 Corinthians 13 (the love chapter) says, “… and the greatest of these is love.”
Now with my preschool years many decades in the rearview mirror, and with many more God-attributes that are important to me, I am still encouraged by that undeniable fact that God is love.
One of my favorite verses comes from Jeremiah 31:3:
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
While God is talking to his people, Israel, in this passage, the message applies to all of us who are God’s people today. It’s something I’ve relied on, more times than I can count, when I’m feeling the loss of the deep love I experienced with Dale. Having God’s everlasting love is better than anything I experienced in this life. And I interpreted it to mean that God has loved me since he created me, and would love me forever more. That’s a beautiful promise!
So I was surprised at a new perspective I got this week, regarding everlasting love, as I was reading one of my devotions. This is the second time I’ve been through Charles Spurgeon’s year-long “Morning and Evening” devotional. It’s rich with deep theology, and I never catch everything the first time through.
Here is the paragraph that got my attention:
“We were chosen from before the foundations of the world. Everlasting love went with the choice, for it was not a bare act of divine will by which we were set apart, but the divine affections were concerned. The Father loved us in and from the beginning.” (emphasis mine)
Wait! What? God has actually loved me since the beginning of time? Since before time even began? Long before I ever existed? God has always loved me?
I know he’s numbered my days since before even one of them came into being (Psalm 139:16), and I’ve been able to grasp that concept, somewhat. But the idea that God has loved me since eternity past (if you can even get your head around that idea), and will continue to love me for the rest of eternity, blew my mind.
Honestly, there’s no way any of us mere humans can grasp that concept. It’s as big as God himself, and we may not ever fully understand it, even in Heaven. But be assured, if you are a child of God, you will experience it.
While the “everlasting past” concept may not be graspable (it is a word), what I loved about reading this devotion, and spending a little time ruminating on its implications, is that it caused me to see God larger, more majestic, more unfathomable, and … even more loving than I had before.
And isn’t that part of what living the Christian life should include? Of course, it’s about sharing the Gospel message, and loving people well, and being sanctified by God on this journey. But seeing God with a more awe-struck perspective is an integral part of growing in our faith.
I don’t know if this “wowed” you like it did me, but I hope it at least caused you to think more deeply about this incredible God we serve.
If you go through moments or seasons when you question God’s’ love for you, perhaps because those times are so difficult, I encourage you to think again about this reality. God has never not loved us. (Sometimes it’s necessary to use a double negative!) May that thought permeate your soul in your sunshine days, and especially when those dark clouds roll in.
Anyone who does not love does not know God,
because God is love.
1 John 4:8
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