God's love is unlimited in extent. The love of God extends to all people in all times. God’s love is for all mankind. We tend to love our own, our own family; our own friends; our own people but God doesn't just love His family, God loves His enemies. That is the extent of God’s love.
There are four ways in which this unlimited extent is manifested. Understanding these four ways will expand your knowledge of God's love. Remember, the primary purpose of these posts is to prepare us for the church camp. A narrow view of His marvelous love will not do but an expanded view will increase your capacity for the downpour.
There are four manifestations of God's unlimited live:
1. Common grace.
Common grace is an old term but it's a good one. It means there are certain kindnesses and goodnesses that God does commonly for all people, whether they know Him or not. In Matthew 5:45 Jesus says, "Here's the proof of God's love, He causes His Son to rise on the evil and the good, He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." It rains on everybody.” The sun shines on everybody. Flowers grow in everybody's garden. Lots of people have lots of fun and lots of joy and lots of happiness and it has nothing to do with whether they know God or not, right? That's just how it is in life. That's how God's love manifests itself. God loves all the world that He created.
2. Compassion
God’s love manifests itself in compassion. To say it another way, it is a love of pity. It is a love of broken-heartedness. It is a love of sadness.
In Jeremiah 13 Jeremiah cries the tears of God, for it says, "Give glory unto God" in verses 15 and following, "And if you don't...he says...mine eyes will run down with tears and I will weep with sorrow." Those are the tears of God. God weeps over the failings of His created people. It pains Him that we are hurt and struggling. If you go to chapter 48 of Jeremiah, start in verse 30, go down to verse 36, read the tears of God there. It was pity. It was compassion. Love motivated by wasted value, lost value. It's the same kind of thing you might feel when you walk through the villages of war-torn East Timor and you see burnt houses and wide-eyed diseased children running around barely with any clothes on their bodies ...there's nothing about them that attracts your affection, but there's a heart-wrenching sense of pity and pain that manifest in compassion. That's the love of God in the realm of compassion. He pities us and feels with us in our pain.
3. Love of Warning.
The pages of Scripture are replete with God's warnings. I mean, if God really didn't love mankind, then He didn't have to warn him cause He didn't care. But He does love and He does care and He does warn. Every loving parent must warn his child of danger. So does God. Why? Because God loves men enough to warn them. Jesus, Luke 13:3 and 5, both verses separated by verse 4 says exactly the same thing. He says this, "I tell you, unless you repent you will perish." God’s love is not just a cuddly emotion. His love is an honest concern about a person's destiny.
4. The Gospel Offer
When Isaiah says come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money, without price, when Jesus teaches in Matthew 22:2 and 3 the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king which made a marriage for his son and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding and they wouldn't come, and then it says he went out into the highways and byways and called some others. Do you notice there that it says he went out and called those that were bidden to the wedding and they wouldn't come? The love of God not only warns about judgment, the love of God calls to salvation. In Luke 2:10, the angel said to them, "I bring you good news of great joy which shall be for all people. There is born this day in the city of David a Saviour." That's good news for all people...for all people.
Look, God loves the whole world. You see it in common grace. You see it in compassion. You see it in warning. And you see it in the offer of the gospel. And Jesus is the Savior of the whole world. John 6: 33 says, "For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world." And, we have to be able to say that to every sinner, right? He is the Savior of the world.
Shall we not make that the theme of our TGIF this Easter – tell everyone He is the Risen Saviour of the world and be the conduits of His love, taking them down the ROAD which is RED?
