GOD'S GREAT
LOVE
By Rev. Dr.
Brett Snowden
Have you ever given serious
thought to why you were created? The
number one reason why each of us are born is because God loves us. You were created by God to love and to be loved. The very essence of God's being, his
personality, his very nature - is love.
The sad truth is that even
though many people today have heard that God loves them, they simply don't
believe it. They just cannot understand
or comprehend the reality of God's love in their lives. They can't grasp
something they cannot see. They haven't
learned how to recognize it and experience it and therefore they don't know how
to embrace it, nurture it, grow in it, or truly enjoy it. And with out knowing and realizing that God
loves us we cannot possibly have hope in our lives.
Many of us find it difficult to believe that God can
look at us and smile. For years I viewed
God as a judge, as do most of the people I know. I created this god in my own image. Like me, this god was capable of love, but it
was a conditional love. This god
of my religious imagination was eventually replaced by the real God, the God of
Abraham, the Father of Jesus. Please
note that the change did not occur instantaneously. The false idol I had
created had to be slowly melted down by the fire of God's furious love. Peter van Breeman
writes, "If we think God is a person who can
divide his love, then we are thinking not of God but ourselves. God is
perfectly one, the perfect unity. We
have love, but God is love. His love is
not an activity. It is his whole self.”[1] I am capable of loving, but I am also
capable of not loving. That cannot be
said about God. God cannot stop loving,
because love is God's nature. It is not
my nature to love. I must learn to love,
and only by God's grace am I able to love as he loves.
There is something in us that God
finds lovable. It is certainly not our
sanctity, nor is it our fidelity. When I look at my own baseness, my incredible
ability to sin at a moment's notice, I wonder what God sees in me. Just recently I experienced a wonderful hour
of personal prayer. I felt all warm
inside, centered on God's love, and ready to share that love with everyone I
met. The first person I came in contact
with annoyed me and immediately I engaged in an intense debate that benefited
neither party. Where did this anger come
from? It was in me all along. It is a good thing that God does not wait for us
to become perfect in order to accept us.
My pride led me to want to earn God's acceptance
because I felt so unacceptable. One of
the hardest steps for me was to admit my weaknesses and failures. I had tried to cover them up, excuse them,
and rationalize them. But each time I
found myself baring my soul to God, I received not judgment but mercy. God's love for me has radically reshaped my
identity. I no longer need to defend
myself, make resolutions to do better, or show God that I have atoned for my
sins. God loves me just as I am,
not as I should be. I know that I am not
as I should be. I know there is a lot of sin that still
needs to be rooted out of me. I know that God is not finished with me yet. But
I know that I am loved.
How do we come to know such love? We must ask for it. We must pray that we will come to know and
feel this love. We must plead to God
before we will hear His gentle voice.
God will not delay in reply. But
he is so gracious that he will never intrude.
God has promised that if we seek him with all of our heart, we will find
him: "When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all
your heart" (Jer. 29:13).
Frederick Buechner writes,
"If you have never known the power of God's love, then maybe it is because
you have never asked to know it‑I mean really asked, expecting an
answer.”[2] Are you ready to ask? God is ready to give. Nothing gives God more pleasure than filling
his children with love and hearing them exclaim, "Abba, Father!"