God is Love (Part 3)

By Clifton Angel
  “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8, 16). Continuing with the word “love” as an acronym, let us note the third characteristic of this great love. God, Who is Love, is everlasting.   When children do not get their way, they are quick to accuse their parents of not loving them. It is a childish and selfish accusation that implies the parent’s love for their child has ceased and is not everlasting. Yet, the opposite is actually the case.! “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (Proverbs 13:24). Discipline is a exercise of parental love. Likewise, and on a grander level, God exhibits His love toward us through discipline. God through the prophet Jeremiah prophesied to His own special people, whom He would punish, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3). The Hebrews penman wrote to Christians in and around Jerusalem who were contemplating leaving Christ to go back to the law of Moses. Citing from Proverbs 3:11–12, he warned: “Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?” (Hebrews 12:5–7).  Are we ever tempted to think that God has stopped loving us? In moments of loneliness, suffering, grief, persecution, disease, and death, there is a great temptation to accuse God of not loving us. I’ve often read these words from my colleague: “I love you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” This sentiment originates from God. Despite our despair, grief, sin, and disbelief, God still loves us. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). In fact, the only person/thing that can separate the Christian from the love of Christ is one’s own self. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39).   “From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Psalm 90:2). God is everlasting and His love is everlasting. Do you know Him? Do you love like Him?

- Clifton Angel preaches for the Coldwater Church of Christ in Coldwater, MS. He may be contacted through that congregation's website: http://www.coldwatercofc.com/