The Love of God

The Love Relationship

God is passionate about us! He is IN LOVE with us! Many times married people during a counseling session or during a divorce say: "I love him/her I'm just in IN LOVE with him/her..." We get that feeling about God sometimes. We know He loves us. God is love. He can't help but love us. But He can't actually LIKE us right? I mean we're dirty, rotten sinners before getting saved. Even after getting saved we mess up time and again. Many won't say it, many will, there is just this feeling or impression of being distant from God. There is no closeness with him, no intimacy, certainly nothing like the young couple who are "IN LOVE" with each other...But God is IN LOVE with us!

We read the bible with that filter of distance and we see a God who is mad at Adam for falling into sin and cursing him and us through him. We see a God who judges sin in Israel time and again, and judges other nations like Sodom and Gomorrah. But if we start to let the Word speak for itself and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal God's heart to us we see that religion, which is primarily a tool of the devil to keep people from God, painted us this mean picture of an angry God. When we didn't see Him as angry we at least saw Him as Holy and to be feared by those who sin. Although this holiness side of God is true and right, and it is to be feared by those who have not received Jesus it is not the side of God that a Christian should focus on. God's wrath was poured out on Jesus. He has paid for our lives, past, present, and future, IN FULL! I can sin 20 minutes from now and I'm already cleansed from it. Sin doesn't remove me from God in any way accept one. When I sin the accuser comes to bring condemnation. If I allow that to enter in than I remove myself from fellowship with my Father in heaven. HE does not remove fellowship, I do. Just like Adam hiding in the Garden and Jesus seeking him out. When I sin I need to run TO God not FROM God. I'm already forgiven, there is nothing for Him to say but "I love you".

The Bible says God is Love.

1 John 4:8 (New King James Version)
8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

1 John 4:19 (New King James Version)We love Him because He first loved us.

1 John 4:16 (New King James Version)And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. 

The secret to walking in the Love of God is to believe the Love He has for us! Then we can walk out this life with Joy and ease. Let us take a look at who and what the Word says God is and who we are IN HIM!

A Journey into the Center of God's Love

Throughout the Hebrew language we see God uses pattern to establish a point. Not only does God work in patterns, but in the original Hebrew language there were no exclamation points (!) or question marks (?); and no italics or bold font. You had to understand the emphasis by the context. In many ways the Hebrew and Greek languages were more elegant in that way because they required that you pay attention in order to understand. So the use of patterns was not only poetic but a literary tool to create emphasis.

In Hebrew language and writing, in order to make a point, sometimes writers used a method of establishing a pattern and then breaking the pattern. This break in the pattern and repetition would be a sign to pay close attention to the following information. We see this in the prayer of Jabez. The texts reads for pages: So and so begat so and so begat so and so.... Now Jabez...

So the chain is broken to provide information.

1 Chronicles 4:9-109 Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, "Because I bore him in pain." 10 And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, "Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!" So God granted him what he requested.

Personally and Passionately Created

The chain of information is broken to provide information, which in and of itself is a style used to create emphasis. In Genesis we see this pattern again. Over and over we see God commanding things to be and then the be. God said, "Let the/there..." over and over. But all of a sudden the pattern breaks... God takes a different tone. Then God said, "Let US create..." God breaks the pattern to get personally involved here.

Genesis 1
1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
3Then God said, "Let there be...
6Then God said, "Let there be...
9Then God said, "Let the...
11Then God said, "Let the...
14Then God said, "Let there be...
20Then God said, "Let the...
24Then God said, "Let the...

26Then God said, "Let Us make

Who was this doing the speaking. God the Father? Yes all things originate in Him. Jesus said that he only said what He heard the Father say. (John 5:19) But there is more here than that. Let us take a look at Proverbs 8. In verse one we see that wisdom has been personified and is begins speaking to us in the first person. As Wisdom is talking you can begin to hear the tone of authority rise. We pick up the narrative in verse 22:

Proverbs 822 "The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old. 23 I have been established from everlasting, From the beginning, before there was ever an earth. 24 When there were no depths I was brought forth, When there were no fountains abounding with water. 25 Before the mountains were settled, Before the hills, I was brought forth; 26 While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields, Or the primeval dust of the world. 27 When He prepared the heavens, I was there, When He drew a circle on the face of the deep, 28 When He established the clouds above, When He strengthened the fountains of the deep, 29 When He assigned to the sea its limit, So that the waters would not transgress His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth, 30 Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman; And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing always before Him, 31 Rejoicing in His inhabited world, And my delight was with the sons of men.

Taking a quick look at John 1 reveals a parallel comparison. It's almost striking how similar they are in tone and context. I wonder is John was meditating on Proverbs 8 as he was writing his Gospel. John of course reveals that Jesus was the master craftsman, the one through whom all things were made. The OT looks at NT things and reveals them in shadows but the NT gives us perfect knowledge. What Proverbs 8 was trying to say John helped complete. Jesus was our Master Craftsman. 1 Corinthians 1:30 tells us:

30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God--and righteousness and sanctification and redemption--

Jesus became Wisdom for us! So we can see Proverbs 8 is really Jesus talking to us. HE/Jesus was daily God the Fathers' delight and HIS/Jesus' delight was with US! Mankind was Jesus delight! He was IN LOVE with us! He was building this planet for us! Just as a couple that creates a special room in the house for the child that is about to be born and calls in a nursery, so Jesus was so excited about this man child about to be born that he was building on to the house. Our room was a planet!

Parents want to make everything just right, you can just see Him creating things and wanting it to be just right. How could it take God a whole 6 days to create this planet. This is God! He could have slapped it together in a moment right? Yes! He could have! And judging by the other planets in our solar system it seems like He did just that with those. But not this planet, not the kids room! No everything had to be just right. I could just see him crafting every tree and animal to delight his man child that is about to become.

26Then God said, "Let Us make

God pauses all of His creating. It's time! Delivery time! Father's go NUTS sometimes when time has come to give birth. Mom says "It's time..." and Dad starts going crazy; "do we need to do this or that...do we have that..." This is from excitement. Everything is ready on planet earth, the room is prepared and Jesus hears the Father say: It's time. Jesus breaks all of His pattern. He is no longer interested in commanding things to happen and watching them happen. He has to get personally involved in this one. Genesis two takes a second and closer look at how this happened.

Genesis 2:7And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

It was not good enough for our Jesus to simply command that man become and watch it happen. No he came down to this newly reformed planet and gathered the dirt himself and formed the body by hand. All sculptures created by men are just reliving this first of all sculptures. In fact the Jesus still takes a personal interest in each person on the planet and forms them the same way in the mothers womb!

Jeremiah 1:5"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations."

Psalm 139:13For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb.

Isaiah 44:2Thus says the Lord who made you And formed you from the womb, who will help you: 'Fear not, O Jacob My servant; And you, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.

Jesus was not just personally interested in the creation of the 1st man, He is personally interested in the creation of each individual man and was there creating you!

Delighted!

We see from Proverbs 8 that Jesus doesn't just Love you... as a man Loves a wife but may have lost the IN LOVE feeling... NO! Jesus is IN LOVE with you! He is passionate about you! He is delighted in you! He can't get enough of you! Jesus wants nothing more than spend an eternity with you! No couple on earth has ever been more infatuated with each other than Jesus is with you! And Jesus never looses that feeling! He is enamored with you!

 Proverbs 8 

30 Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman; And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing always before Him, 31 Rejoicing in His inhabited world, And my delight was with the sons of men.

There is just something about our relationship with Jesus that is special! The Father and The Holy Spirit are both thoroughly involved in our lives. It is nearly impossible to tell where one of the Godhead starts and another stops. They are the three in one. They are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They, together, make up God as we know him. When we say God we are talking about all three at the same time with one word. It's nearly unfathomable. They are not three personalities of one person. They are not three "hats" of one person. Saying they are one is not like saying that I'm a Father, a Son, and a Husband. God is not one person playing three roles. God is three separate and distinct persons and personalities that make up one unit called God. They are so totally one that they are nearly indistinguishable.

But there is something about our relationship with Jesus in particular that is just so special.

Hebrews 2:9-109 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. 10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

It was Jesus Himself that created Adam, and creates us. It was Jesus himself that walked in the cool of the Garden to find Adam and talk to him. It was Jesus himself who became our covering and died for us! Jesus is the groom and the Church is His bride! What an intimate comparison! (Ephesians 5:22-23 and Revelations 19:9)

Jesus didn't just come to pay for your sin so you could skip hell and go to heaven and then leave you here to fend for yourself! In John, You can hear how He doesn't want to leave us but He will because it's to our advantage.

John 16:7Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.

But you can also hear in His last words to us how eagerly He desires to have and hold us again!

Revelation 22He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming quickly." Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Oh how great and awesome is the Love of Jesus for us! You may have known that Jesus loves you... but have you experienced it?! Read and Re-Read this writting until it washes all over you! Preach it to yourself until you are saturated with how much Jesus is passionately, boldly, and wildly IN LOVE with you!

Darrell G. Wolfe