I am preparing at this particular point the series of messages for the church camp in June on the love of God. And in preparing, I realized that there are so many things about the marvelous love of God that I hadn't yet studied and hadn't yet preached and hadn't really yet thought through, what more there is so much more of the love of God that I hadn’t yet experienced! I am so excited embarking on this new journey of re-discovering the love of the Lord. A downpour doesn’t just happen. There is first the collection of rain clouds in the atmosphere. I believe between now and June, the Lord will be seeding the ‘clouds’ for us to experience the deluge of the love of the Lord!
And I want to invite you to join me in this journey in preparing our souls for the downpour. What I intend to do is to share my studies on the love of the Lord as we move along, praying that the Lord will plant seeds and water them in your soul, making you so ready for the downpour in June. Please join me in this journey.
In 2 Corinthians 13:11 God is called the God of love. And in 1 John 4:8 the Bible says God is love. This is truly the crowning character of God. This is part of the fabric of His spiritual essence, His being. And it is a much celebrated attribute because along with it comes goodness and kindness and mercy. Song writers and hymn composers and poets through all the history of the church have exalted God as a God of love. They have written hymns and songs and psalms and poems on the love of God.
Song-writer and composer Bill Gaither has probably written the best lyrics that I know on the love of God. He writes:
`Could we with ink the ocean fill
and were the skies of parchment made,
were every stalk on earth a quill
and every man a scribe by trade,
to write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry,
nor could the scroll contain the whole,
though stretched from sky to sky.’
An immense communication of the love of God. The chorus of that song says,
"O love of God how rich and pure,
how measureless and strong,
it shall forevermore endure the saints' and angels' song."
Lyrics like these stir us to want to know the depths of God’s love. We are His children and He so loves us. Isn’t it our spiritual right to understand and experience the fullness of that love? Because I really believe that when we know the depth and the height and the width of His love, we will be healed of many of our maladies. We will be made whole.
And what I want to show you in the days ahead through this blog is how to understand the love of God. Because it will prepare you for the downpour. It will make you ready to experience God.
Now in order for you to grasp it, I want you to think around three key propositions that I will list here but we will go through this for a good number of posts in the days and weeks ahead. And until it's all done you're not going to have it all together. So can I encourage you to just enjoy the trip. And when you enjoy the trip you will love the destination when we reach it, that is, at the church camp, in June.
Let me give you the three propositions:
Proposition #1: God's love is unlimited in extent.
Proposition #2: God's love is limited in degree.
Proposition #3 God's love is ultimately directed at His glory.
We will deal with the first proposition in the next post.
