Unconditional Love
by: Bob Cassell
I love you so very much, I love you with all heart,
I love you unconditionally. I love you now and I
will love you forever! Have you heard these words? They are nice and come into us smoothly, but what are we to make of such kind words? Have you heard these words expressed in this manner?
Is love dependent or independent? True Love depends on God. He is love and has always loved exhaustively. He does not try to love, nor does he try to be good or perfect, but he is and always has been there will never be a time when he is not perfect and sovereign.
He does not love you less because you are bad, unruly or disobedient. He loves you because of who and what he is and not because of who and what you are, have been or ever will be. Now you can begin to relax. Amazing! Yes, indeed!
When we realize the wide chasm between God’s love and our love there is every reason to become more impressed with his person than we are with ourselves. When we stop, look and listen to his admonitions and see his imminent and reliable love we begin to realize the depth and reality of his marvelous grace by clearly beholding his stunning character.
At no point in the Christian way of life does a believer realize his limitations more than when he is face to face with the overwhelming personage, power, and ability of God as he is clearly revealed in his holy word.
Do we love others personally or impersonally? Personal love emphasizes the object of love: impersonal love the subject. God loves personally only what his righteousness approves. God’s justice satisfies his righteous demands. His righteousness accepts what his justice has accomplished. How can God really love those who know nothing of what was accomplished on the Cross? In ignorance, some believe that God somehow (they don’t know how) throws away his perfect standards and falls in love with sin cursed mankind.
This warped thought seems to believe that God can’t go on without everyone and that we will all be welcomed into heaven with open arms that is, if we only do our best and really, really, behave. These few that believe these vacuous things see God as a sweet, soft hearted, old, and long bearded grandpa. For certain, this old and kind grandpa would never send his created ones to Hell! Can you see Satan dancing to this blatantly false message? Standby for shocks!! God does not love the way we love. He does not love in the same emotional, unthinking, unstable way that humans love.
The individual who thinks God functions on feelings toward him will naturally try to operate on feelings and emotion toward God. What is the result when feelings are used as the criteria for measuring a legitimate relationship with God? Let’s mention a few things we see in many Churches today.
In an attempt to make individuals feel good the program is extended to include the most up to date songs with loud repetitive ear-piercing music that continues ad-infinitum, not to mention, long sermons, long announcements, and long prayers. Many want to feel good because they’ve attended church, so they work diligently to feel they have had a close encounter with God or with the Holy Spirit of God. “Couldn’t you feel that God was with us today! Didn’t you feel the presence of the Holy Spirit here with us today?” Sadly, too many so-called worship services are long on emotion and short on bible truths.
Many want to feel good because of the personal production of good deeds, or they are exhilarated to feel the approbation of the Pastor who lavishes praise on their undernourished souls. This kind of activity results from a programmed Christianity that is devoid of biblical truths.
A countermanding result can be realized if solid bible teaching is conducted which will equip the believer to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The normal order of the day for the maturing Christian is to assimilate bible content and become spiritually self-sustaining as opposed to a dependence upon the pastor or any of the emotional programs that stunt true spiritual growth and development. Only the intake of bible content enables the mature believer to know God and to stand in respect of his triune person.
To know him is to truly Love and adore him. But God’s love does not function like human love because he does not need a cause for his love. God loves himself perfectly and this love is internal. He needs no human object for his love to function because HE IS the perfect object.
Since he is omnipresent and all of his characteristics follow this part of his noble essence, his love is external as well. This beautiful love is pure, rational, perfect and also internal but internal objectively. His love whether internal or external is rational and perfect and eternal from one person of the Godhead to another.
You can discern that God loves himself with nothing other than perfect love. He knows himself exhaustively and that he is totally beyond comparison and is worthy of worship and admiration to infinity. Therefore, God has every right to demand and claim all Glory for Himself, simply because this is absolute truth.
If God did not love himself there would be no reason for us to love Him. Since he knows himself and that knowledge is infinite, we can learn what he already knows and has always known about his own essence. His love for himself is not selfish but is a recognition of facts about himself.
He is truly worthy of love; his perfect integrity is the benchmark that says he is the true giver of all things righteous and good. All we have that pleases God is what he has already given us. First Salvation as a free gift that is resident in the person of Christ and subsequently the power of the Holy spirit that came to indwell our souls for the glorification of God in these frail human bodies.
