True Love

His banner over me was love

(Song of Solomon 2:4)

Ladies, do you remember telling your fortune with a flower?  Holding it in your hand, plucking off the petals one by one while counting off “he loves me”, “he loves me not”? The last petal and statement was supposed to tell how a certain boy felt about you.

Sometimes, I’m afraid, in our thinking we apply something similar to that to how God feels about us.  On our good days,when we are kind and thoughtful and useful --”He loves me”, while on the days when we are unkind, thoughtless, and surly--”He loves me not”.  When we are energetic and productive--”He loves me”. But let a day go by when we feel listless and accomplish very little--”He loves me not”.

According to the Bible, this is not an accurate description of God’s love.  There we find that God is love (I John 4:8)  Not just that God loves, but that His very essence is love itself. In other words, it is His nature to love.

It may be hard for us to truly grasp just how constant and complete God’s love is for us.  But whether we are always kind, thoughtful, generous and productive, His love remains the same.  Does He always approve of the things we say and do or don’t do?  No, like a good parent, He wants the best from His children, but our performance in no ways improves or diminishes the quality of His love.

He didn’t wait for mankind to become worthy of being loved either.  As He says in His Word:

God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that 

while we were still sinners (enemies),Christ died for us

 (Romans 5:8. Insert mine)

God loves each and every individual and longs to have a personal relationship with everyone.  In order to provide a way for that to become a reality, He did the unthinkable:

 God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten (born-to-Him) Son, 

that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world  

but that the world through Him might be saved 

(John 3:16-17. Insert mine).

Father God, I thank You now
for loving us the way You do--
faithful, kind, and constantly; 
with a love that’s always true.

Glenda Collins Inman