Everlasting Love

Teaching, like motherhood, often requires the answering of silly questions with serious truths. One of my students asked me at dismissal the other day, “Would you still love us if I had a broken arm?”

I suspect that she asked the question partly to be silly, but also partly because she knew what the answer would be and wanted to hear it just one more time before going home for the day.

I told her that of course I would still love her, that my love, like God’s love, doesn’t depend on arms. I told her that I would still love her even if she didn’t have any arms at all, which of course resulted in a wide-eyed commotion throughout the First Grade line as they imagined life without limbs.

But do you know, that question, ‘Would you still love me if…” often occurs in our relationship with God? More often, it is phrased like this:

“Lord, do You still love me?”

Whether it’s our own sinful actions or desires, or circumstances beyond our control, our hearts look to God wondering why or how He would still love us, or why or how He would allow these things to happen to us. At the very heart of the matter is that simple, childlike question: “Do You love me?”

And the simple answer to the simple question is: “Yes.”

Jeremiah was a prophet during a dark time in Israel’s history. He gave messages to a people who refused to hear, refused to return to God. He watched the city be destroyed, its people killed  or captured, and yet it was Jeremiah through whom God gave this message to His rebellious people:

“The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” (Jeremiah 31:3)

After detailing the judgment about to be poured out on Israel, God assures them of His everlasting love. They were not in the place of blessing, yet He still held blessings in trust for them when their judgment was over and their hearts had returned.

The simple truth is that God’s love doesn’t change when we sin. Look at what Romans 5 tells us:

“For when we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”(vv.6-8)

God’s love was extended to us even in the depths of our sinfulness. His love never changes. In 1 Corinthians 13, God gives us a picture of what His love is like. The last few qualities of Christlike love listed in that passage remind us of just how unchanging the love of God really is.

“[Charity] Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, Charity never faileth…” (vv.7-8a)

God’s love never changes. It bears all, believes all, endures all, and never fails.

In the midst of whatever you are going through, remember that God’s love hasn’t changed—it never will! In fact, if you’re going through difficult circumstances, it’s likely those very difficulties are present in your life because God loves you. —That can be a difficult truth to swallow, because we would rather think that God’s unchanging love means that nothing negative will ever happen to us, but notice what Romans 8 tells us:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” (vv. 35-37)

There are a lot of negative things mentioned in those verses, but the fact remains: no matter how negative, no matter how painful, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

He may in His perfect justice bring judgment on our sin, He may in His wisdom allow painful or sorrowful circumstances to occur in our lives, but each thing He allows is for the sake of drawing us ever closer to Himself, purifying us and making us more like Him so that our fellowship may be all the closer.

God’s love doesn’t change. Whatever else may falter or be lost, we can always rest secure in His love.

But for the saved in Christ, the challenge is not just to accept and rest in God’s love. It is also to love others with His same love. Jesus said:

“This is My commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” John 15:12

This is impossible without the empowering of the Holy Spirit, but God freely offers us all the power we need to obey.

Dear reader, are you resting in the certainty that God’s love is unchanging? How does God want you to show that same unchanging love to others today?

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

Romans 8:38-39