NewLife News: The Attributes of God - Love

2/5/2025

Love is everywhere in our culture. We hear about it in our songs, we see it in our movies, it’s the pursuit of many TV shows, and we use the word love about many things. In the end, our society is still hungering for love. Have you ever heard someone say the phrase, “there has to be more than this”? I have heard people say this and other similar terms and it reminds me of their need for Jesus. As followers of Jesus, we have the privilege of knowing God’s love and His ultimate expression of His love, sending Christ to rescue us and bring us into His kingdom (Col. 1:13).

As children of God, adopted through Christ, we can know and experience that:

God is love (1 John 4:8,16)
His love is perfect (1 John 4:18)
There is no greater love than His (John 15:13)
He loves us with an everlasting love (Jer. 3:13)
He loves us so much that He did not spare His own Son on our behalf (Rom. 8:32).

Even in saying all of this, though, I am concerned that we often miss out on God’s love. One of the questions I asked myself as I was preparing to preach about God’s love is, “Why don’t we experience God’s love?” I have come to think that one of the major reasons we don’t experience God’s love is that we aren’t convinced of His love. We fear that something will somehow interfere with His love towards us. These things then eat away at our relationship with God.

What are we to do in response to this? We become convinced or persuaded, as Paul was, of God’s love as we see in Rom. 8:38. How are we to be convinced of this? We need to look at the cross (Rom. 5:8) knowing that this was God’s demonstration of His love for us: Christ dying for us, as sinners. And, we need to remind ourselves of His love, call it to mind, and even say it to ourselves as Jeremiah modeled in Lam. 3:20-24, that we are not consumed because of His great love for us.

Friends, life will bring many things our way, we need to hold on to Him and His love throughout our entire journey with Him.

Blessings for the Journey,

Pastor Andy

P.S. This is Pastor Kyle and Pastor Andy reminding you that God loves you!

Questions for reflection and application: