The Way God Loves

Fill in the blank.  “God, if you loved me, you would _____________”.

What?  Let me win the lottery?  Heal my cancer?  Give me a spouse?  Save my marriage?  Let my baby live?   Restore my relationship with my son, my daughter?  Overlook my sin?  And what if he doesn’t?  What will you think about God and his love then?

God is love.  About this the Bible is clear.  Still, in the face of life’s injustices, disappointments, griefs—and our own willful sin—a critical question remains.  How does God love?  Does God love us by granting our every worldly desire?  The obvious answer is “No”.  Does God love us by protecting us from life’s disappointments and pain?  Hardly.  Does God love us by promising to forever condone our sin?  Absolutely not.  In the end, God doesn’t love us the way we so often want to be loved.  He cares too much for that.  God loves us the way we need to be loved.  And, in light of coming judgment, the way we need to be loved is Jesus.

The Bible is clear about this.  John 3:16 says, For God so loved the world…  How?  He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  In Romans 5:8, Paul writes, God shows his love for us…  How?  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  In 1 John 4:9-10, we read, In this the love of God was made manifest among us…  How?  God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.  John continues, In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us…  How?  By sending his Son to be the propitiation (the atonement) for our sins.

Jesus on the cross paying our sin penalty—that’s the way God loves sinners in need of forgiveness like you and me.  That’s the way God loves our lost and dying world.  Which raises a question.  Why do so many people reject the self-sacrificing, saving love of God?  Why do so many refuse to receive God’s love the way he offers it—through repentance and faith in the Jesus who died on a cross and rose from the grave to save us from our sin?   

The answer lies in our own arrogance and our lack of self-awareness about how desperately sinful and worthy of God’s wrath we are.  After all, no one seeks a Savior until they know that a Savior is what they need.  Beyond that, those who know they need a Savior must understand that Jesus is the only Savior who’ll do!  While multitudes of people proclaim that “all roads lead to heaven,” the Bible stands firm.  Forgiveness and life are found in Christ alone.  In John 6:14 Jesus himself declares, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  In Acts 4:12, Peter rightly insists that salvation can be found in no one else but Christ.  For there is, he says, no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”  

Here’s what that means?  If you end up in hell, it won’t be because God didn’t love you.  If you end up in hell, it will be because you refused to accept God’s love the only way he offers it—through faith in Jesus who died on the cross to pay our sin penalty and who conquered death when he rose from the grave.   

God is love.  In Jesus, God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  What more can he do?  The ball’s in your court now.  Will you humble yourself and receive God’s love the way he offers it?  When you embrace Jesus as Lord and Savior, you embrace God’s love.  When you reject Jesus, you reject God’s love.  And that will forever  be on you.