The Unlimited Love Of God

THE UNLIMITED LOVE OF GOD

By Pastor Jim May

Scriptures used: Romans 5:8, James 1:17-18, 1 Samuel 9:2, and the primary source, 1 Samuel 12:19-25

If there is one thing that defines how God feels toward humanity, it’s His unlimited love. I’m so glad to know the love of God. I’m so glad to know that His love for me is not based upon what I do or how I do it. God’s love is based solely upon his power to love and nothing else.

We cannot lose the Love of God. After all, God loved us long before we even knew who He was. It was God that came looking for us, his lost sheep. Romans 5:8, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." It was God who first decided that He wanted to have a personal relationship with man whom He had created. It is God who chases after us, seeks us and tries to reach out to us. Our attitude toward God has nothing to do whatsoever with whether God loves us or not.

The Book of James tells us in Chapter1, verses 17-18 that, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures." That simply means that the Love of God is God’s good and perfect gift to all men everywhere, whether they are saved and living for Him, or not.

It is God’s perfect, unchanging and unending love that reached out to you and I when we were yet sinners and had not given God a thought. We were running as wild sheep when God came hunting for us and called us by name and said, “It’s time to come home now!”

Aren’t you glad for God’s love, God’s mercy and God’s grace? I’m so glad that God’s love for me doesn’t change. He doesn’t love me any less when I have failed him miserably and yielded to temptation and ran from His presence to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. His grace is always the same, reaching out to bring me back to Him and to do all that he can to convince me to restore my relationship with Him.

The Book of Psalms says over and over again, “His mercy endureth forever. His mercy endureth forever. His mercy endureth forever!” I’m so glad that my God is an unchanging God. He is Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever, and because He is an unchanging God, I can always count on His great love, His mercy and His grace, even when I am rebellious against Him, and trampling his love into the dust, and running with all my might from His perfect will for my life, and chasing after the things of the world, and caught up in the cares of life, His love is still there.

True enough, I can lose God’s favor by running from Him. He can lift His hand of blessing from my life. I can lose that closeness in my relationship with Him. I can suddenly realize, like the Prodigal Son, that I have strayed far from home and now I am trapped in the hog pen of sin and shame. But no matter how far I have gone, I am so glad that I can turn back toward home and know that God still loves me and His greatest desire is to see His wayward sheep come home.

Let me give you a little story from Israel’s history that will show you just a little of how much God loves you.

All of you who have been in church for any time will remember the story of how God delivered Israel out of the land of Egypt and destroyed the armies of Pharaoh in the Red Sea. Israel had failed God terribly and had fallen into idolatry. As a result they were slaves in Egypt for 400 long years. Generations passed without deliverance, but there came a day when God’s love caused Him to stop the judgment for sin against His people.

With a mighty hand God brought them out. Seven terrible plagues had utterly destroyed the economy of Egypt and God brought the most powerful king on the face of the earth at that time to his knees.

God wanted to be Israel’s God! He wanted them to follow Him, so he put a pillar of fire, representative of the “Fire of the Holy Ghost” that leads us in the darkest hours of our lives. When it seems that the world has closed around us and we can’t see the light of day, that “pillar of fire” still leads us today. Through the leading and power of the Holy Ghost, and by His power, we are led from victory to victory, through dark valley after dark valley, until we can open our eyes and see the Glory of God shining in us.