What The Bible Says About God’s Love

 

My eyes measured the narrow space between our huge armoire and the bedroom wall.

“I think it’ll fit!” I said eagerly.

My husband’s eagle-eyed inspection was making me nervous. A friend had offered me a desk she was no longer using, and I’d decided it would be perfect for my bedroom. I needed a place for writing, and besides, it was free.

“I’ll make it work!” I urged, meaning I’d push and prod the armoire until I could squeeze the desk in.

But I knew what was coming.

My husband disappeared into the garage and came back with his trusty tape measure. After measuring the space and scrutinizing the numbers, he made a proclamation.

“The desk is  three inches too wide.”

For a crazy, fleeting moment I actually got angry at my husband. Why did he always have to measure everything? Why did everything have to be so exact? I might could have shoved/pushed/squeezed enough to make the desk work!

But I knew he was right. All the squeezing in the world wouldn’t chop three inches off the desk. In the end, measuring the space saved us the trouble of going to pick up a desk that wouldn’t fit properly.

Sometimes we need to measure the length, width, height, or depth of something so we’ll know if it’ll work.

I think that’s why the apostle Paul took the time to measure God’s love for us. Does it fit? Will it work? Is it enough?

His measurements answer an important question for us—

WHAT IS GOD’S LOVE ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE?

Scrutinizing the characteristics of God’s love is something we should do often. That’s how we’re able “to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God himself” Ephesians 3:17-18, (TLB).

 

 

ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE, GOD’S LOVE IS WIDE ENOUGH TO EMBRACE US ALL

If I’m honest, I’ll admit I sometimes forget that God’s love is so wide and all-encompassing, it extends to all nations, ranks, ethnic groups, races, economic groups, denominations, and personalities. That includes every person who rubs me the wrong way.

Sometimes it’s hard to love people who aren’t anything like us.  People who think, act, or believe differently. That’s when we have to work hard to look past our differences and find common ground. Yet, sometimes the gulf between us seems too wide to cross.

Thank God He didn’t come to that conclusion. He sent His Son for every single one of us. The charming and the hard-to-love. The Muslim and the Christian. The dark-skinned and the light-skinned. The wealthy and the poor.

No matter how diverse or polar opposite someone else may be, in the final analysis he or she was created in the image of God. And God loves him or her. When I’m conscious of that, there’s enough common ground to motivate me to reach out in love, in spite of our differences.

 

GOD’S LOVE IS LONG ENOUGH TO LAST

God’s love continues from everlasting to everlasting. There’s honestly nothing we can do to make God love us more. And there’s nothing we can do to make Him love us less.

That makes our efforts to “prove” our worth to God—well, worthless.  We don’t have to measure up,  be a “good enough Christian” or compete with other believers. We can stop fighting for importance and using positions of power and authority to stake a claim for spiritual importance.

When we do those things, we reveal that—deep in our hearts—we don’t honestly believe God’s love is enough. We think we need to make spiritual points to stay in His favor. In other words, we expose an inner fear that God’s love for us may run out.

But here’s the thing. God’s love for us is based not on who we are or what we have or haven’t done, but in the love-borne sacrifice of His Son.

When my security is found in the reality of Christ’s unquenchable love for me, I find it easier to relax, confident in the knowledge that “His presence within us is God’s guarantee that he really will give us all that he promised; and the Spirit’s seal upon us means that God has already purchased us and that he guarantees to bring us to himself. This is just one more reason for us to praise our glorious God” Ephesians 1:14 (TLB).

GOD’S LOVE IS DEEP ENOUGH TO COVER EVERYONE

God’s love is so deep that it reaches to the depths of sin and depravity. His mercy extends to the most assaulting and shocking offenses.

When I’m alone with God and have the guts to look back over my life and bring to mind the sins He has forgiven, this truth is like balm to my soul. What if there were sins He’d decided were too gross…too repetitive…too childish to forgive?

Sometimes I judge others as though they were hopelessly beyond the scope of God’s love. But that will never be true. The same mercy God extended to me has been extended to everyone else. No one is beyond hope, because no one is beyond the reach of God’s love.

Listen now! The Lord isn’t too weak to save you. And he isn’t getting deaf! He can hear you when you call!

Isaiah 59:1, TLB

The powerful touch of His love

Some years ago I toured a  missionary leper colony on an island in Malaysia. I was hesitant to go because I knew leprosy was a contagious disease.

I wasn’t prepared for the disturbing repercussions of leprosy . Most of the colony’s residents were disfigured. They’d lost fingers, toes, or entire hands and feet to the disease.

What struck me most was the demonstrative love of the colony’s caretakers. They constantly reached out to the residents, touching and hugging them.

In the Bible, lepers were considered spiritually unclean. They were forced to live outside the city and call out “Unclean! Unclean!” whenever anyone came near.

So, when a man with leprosy approached Jesus and asked to be healed,  it was expected that Jesus—like everyone else—would recoil. But the Bible says Jesus not only healed the man, but, reaching out His hand,  “He touched him, saying, “I am willing; be made clean,” and immediately the disease left him” Luke 5:13, (HCSB).

The love of Christ covers everyone. No one is too far gone or too repulsive. He won’t recoil from even our darkest secrets and our most disgusting sins. Instead, He’ll reach out with a heart of forgiveness and draw us in.

We all need the healing only He can offer, and He’s willing to make us whole.

The truth is, the people we find most difficult to love are probably the ones most in need of our gentle encouragement and God’s powerful touch. When we’re filled with the awareness of God’s great love for us, we’ll more likely reach out and extend His love to others.

GOD’S LOVE IS HIGH ENOUGH TO LIFT EVERYONE OUT OF THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES

When God’s love fills our innermost being, His Living Water satisfies the deepest needs of our soul.

People everywhere are thirsty for what only Jesus Christ can give. What we see as anger, hatred, or hard-heartedness may simply be a parched soul in need of a drink from the well that will never run dry.

People need Jesus. When we withhold love from them, we may be robbing them of the opportunity to experience  the peace, hope, and joy we’ve found in Christ.

What is God’s love according to the Bible? It’s the answer for our deepest longings, our desire to be truly known, and our hunger for value and worth. Nothing in all the world can fill the God-shaped hole in our hearts reserved for His remarkable love.

 

WHAT IS GOD’S LOVE ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE?

No one person, denomination, race, gender, or political party has a market on God’s love.  Measure it. You’ll find His love is wide enough, long enough, deep enough, and high enough to reach and save every single person who will call on the name of Jesus. “For You, Lord, are kind and ready to forgive, rich in faithful love to all who call on You” Psalm 86:5, (HCSB).