The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.
Lamentations 3:22
God is not loving, He is love. He cannot love His children any more or any less because he is one hundred percent love. I find that quite a difficult concept to get my head around. Like most people, I’ve experienced conditional love and I love others conditionally. I do not love perfectly. I don’t think any human being can, no matter how hard we try. Our love is limited because of the sin nature that is within us.
1 John 4:7 declares that “God is love”. His love is complete in every way, because He is completely perfect. His love is not diminished by His justice or by His wrath at sin. It is because He is just that Jesus came to take the punishment for our sins. This is the greatest demonstration of love the world has ever known.
His wrath against sin is an overwhelming expression of His love for mankind. Because He loves us so completely, He has to hate the sin that spoils us and separates us from Him. His love for us is so much greater than any other love we have experienced that it can be hard to understand and take it in.
We often hear the expression “hate the sin, but love the sinner”, and that’s exactly what God does so perfectly. And yet as Christians we can go through periods where we wonder if God still loves us.
Christians sin. Christians sin a lot. I know this because I am a Christian and I know I sin. My sin gets me down. I get so frustrated with myself; so angry that I’ve still not conquered certain habits and behaviours. At times I’m so fed up with myself and my constant failures that I wonder how God can still love me. The devil will always kick us when we’re down. He’ll entice us to sin and then laugh at us when we fall and whisper in our ear that we’ve just gone too far this time, and that God doesn’t love us anymore.
But God cannot stop loving us, because God is love. When we accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour of our lives, God justifies us. That means that our sin, past, present and future has all been paid for. Justification means that when we stand before God it is just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned. What amazing love.
A parent doesn’t stop loving their child every time the child is naughty. Loving parents discipline their children because they want them to grow up in control of themselves and able to make wise decisions. Even if a child tests your patience to the utmost, you can’t help loving your own child and wanting what is best for them.
Our Heavenly Father is the perfect parent. He loves us far more than we can ever think or imagine. He does not excuse our sin, and often we will face the consequences of our sinful behaviour, but he never stops loving us.
The people of Israel sinned continually and turned to worship false gods. They rebelled against Him again and again. Eventually the land was destroyed by war, Jerusalem burned to the ground and the people were taken into captivity. Jeremiah, the prophet who had been ridiculed and dreadfully mistreated when he warned the people of God’s coming judgement, went weeping through the runs of Jerusalem, yet he proclaimed this message:
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness”. Lamentations 3:22-23
God cannot stop loving His people because he can’t stop being Himself. God is not loving. He is Love.
