No Greater Love

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and what that usually means between loved ones is that there will be an exchange of chocolate, cards, and lots and lots of “I love you’s”. There will even be the occasional poem from that special someone who writes with rhythm and rhyme to convey personal feelings in a more romantic way than Hallmark can pull off. Perhaps you’ve either written or received such a love- filled poem.

If you’ve received one, you know how special it is. You recognize the care and thoughtfulness that went into each carefully placed word.

You understand the depth of love this person has for you because they have taken time to communicate with you in a not so ordinary way with not so typical phrasing.

You understand the depth of love this person has for you because they have taken time to communicate with you in a not so ordinary way with not so typical phrasing.

If you’ve written a poem, you know how much time it takes (at least for me) to choose just the right set of words to express just the right feeling or emotion. Your desire is for the reader to not just know how deeply you love her and adore her, but you hope that your love for her would be palatable because the words are sugary sweet and they are delicious to her eyes. Your love for her is unmistakable. She knows she is loved. She can feel it inside as the words warms her heart. She can taste it. It is real. It is sure.

Beloved, as loved as you may feel when those words are spoken to you or read to you, there is no greater love more delicious, more satisfying, more real, more sure than your Heavenly Father’s love for you. My prayer is that through this brief devotion and reflection you will be able to taste it and know that there is a God who loves you profoundly and passionately, and that His love for you compels you and propels you to love Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. (Luke 10:27) God’s love is so true, so unique, so mind-bendingly amazing that John exclaims, “See (Behold) what kind of love the Father has given to us” (1 John 3:1).

John literally is saying, “Look at this! Look at this kind of love that is utterly unknown and foreign to the human race. Look at it. Behold it. Gaze upon it.”

First, let’s consider that God’s love is a Sovereign Love.

Moses wrote these words to Israel, “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you” (Deuteronomy 7:7-8a).

So too with His church. Paul writes to the church at Ephesus that they (and by implication every Christian) are declared by God to be beloved sons and daughters of God not by their own doing, not because they were lovely, not because they were holy and pure. Rather he calls them beloved children simply because of the great love with which He loved them, and He therefore rained down His affection upon them (Ephesians 2:1-8).

Here is what I want you to see. God is not moved to love you and me because of anything in us. He simply loves us because He loves us. His love for us is not dependent on our loveliness, our righteousness, nor our goodness. It is not moved by anything in us, and it therefore cannot be unmoved by us.

His love for us is steadfast and certain and reliable because it is from the one who is steadfast, certain and unmoveable. What great hope! No matter how far we’ve fallen. No matter how great our sin. If you’re a Christian, let this be of comfort to you. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. (Romans 8:38-39) He will therefore never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:6).

God’s love is an Intimate Love.

Sometimes in our reformed circles we are more comfortable with a sovereign God who has no emotion because that’s more predictable.

But God is in fact full of emotion and passion for His people, and this kind of intimacy that He has for his church oozes out of Him the more you contemplate him. His passion for His people , however, does not change Him. It works in concert with everything about Him.

Listen to how the psalmist speaks about God.

Psalm 139:1-5

O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Though God is Spirit, he speaks intimately and figuratively about the kind of love He has for us. In Isaiah 49:16 God says “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”

Those are not the words of a God who sits at a distance. He is not the clockmaker god who sits apart from his creation. is God. Our God. He is intimately acquainted with everything about us. He shows compassion to his children. He knows that we are frail, fragile people,(Psalm 103:13-14) and the God who is love, is so very close to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:8) and the lifer of heads (Psalm 3:3).

We are called by God His beloved children, for whom He was willing to shed His own blood and crush His own Son that He might make unlovely rebels, beloved and holy children. Those are not the actions of a distant impersonal God. Those are the actions of a God who loves deeply, personally and intimately. Can you taste it yet? Can you see it? Is your heart warmed by it? Can you sense the certainty of it? God loves you! But He does not express it through cards or chocolate. He expresses it through suffering; through sacrifIce; through never ending patience and compassion; through gentle words and tender mercies. He loves you!

Paul declared that it was Christ’s love FOR Paul that compelled him to love God and live for God. (2 Corinthians 5:14) He was willing to lose everything that he might gain the only thing that mattered to him - Christ (Philippians 1:21, 3:8).

Do you see God this way? Do you realize that He loves you this deeply? is profoundly? If not, then your heart must be captivated by a new affection for your God and Savior. Sit at (Luke 10:39) His feet as Mary did and listen to Him speak about the depth and the breadth of His love for you. (Romans 8:38,39) Contemplate the extent of His suffering for you. (Isaiah 53) Meditate upon the extent to which He pursues a er you out of love for you even in times of your unfaithfulness (Ezekiel 16:6-14, Luke 15:20-24).

It is there that you will savor and behold that manner of love the Father has for you; and it is there that you will see what no Hallmark card could ever communicate about true love. It is vast, unmeasured, boundless, free, and that kind of love must compel us, as redeemed children of God, to respond in love for God and for others. With all my heart I pray this for our church.

I leave you with a great hymn to further reflect upon to help you draw near to the feet of Christ in praise and prayer.

Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus

Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of thy love -
leading onward, leading homeward, to that glorious rest above!

Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus - spread his praise from shore to shore!
How he loves us, ever loves us, changes never, nevermore!
How he watches o'er his loved ones, died to call them all his own;
how for them he's interceding, watching o'er them from the throne!

Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the best!
'Tis an ocean vast of blessing, 'tis a haven sweet of rest!
Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus - 'tis heaven of heavens to me;
and it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to thee!

 Scott Denny is a Pastor at Grace Bible Church