We recall Jesus at the graveside of Lazarus saying, “Whoever lives and believes in me shall never perish.” (See John 11.)
One has to wonder, at what point we will begin believing that God’s love is eternal and His salvation just as limitless.
God demonstrated Everlasting Love 10,000 ways
1. EVERLASTING LOVE IN CREATION.
The Father could have made a universe of all grays but He chose color. He could have made it with complete silence or dreadful noise, but He gave us music, the sound of birdsong, the laughter of children. He could have limited creation to a few species but the variety of His creation appears without measure.
The totality of creation–all the universe–is amazing in its beauties and complexities and delights, stunning in its power and dread and dimensions, and captivating from the tiniest insect to the grandest of galaxies. Then, if that were not enough, this single planet of Earth exceeds every other site yet discovered in the universe with its life, its beauties, its thousands of traits that truly make it, as Commentator Paul Harvey once said, “the gem of the universe.”
Take a shovel and spade it one time into the dirt in your back yard. If the life in that one shovelful of dirt were to be discovered on Mars, the front page of every newspaper on the planet would shout the news tomorrow. And yet, we take for granted that this planet is living, is abundant in its provisions, and is stable and secure from all harm, as though this is how things automatically should be.
We now know that Earth is the luxury model of planets. And we get to be guests for years and years.
Are we blessed or what? God is such a God of love!
2. EVERLASTING LOVE IN THE INCARNATION.
He cared enough to come Himself.
The writer of Hebrews begins by pointing out that over the centuries God spoke to this world in many ways–patriarchs, prophets, angels, even a donkey on one occasion–but “in these last days has spoken unto us in His Son.”
“Last of all, He sent His Son” said Jesus in a revealing parable (Matthew 21:37).
Here’s how John put it: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
“Jesus, show us God,” said the crowd. “Show us the Father,” said others. Our Lord replied, “All this time I’ve been with you, you still have not figured out who I am? He who has seen me, has seen the Father!” (John 14:8ff. My paraphrase.)
Jesus Christ is the greatest proof of God’s love imaginable. In the words of the inimitable Dr. John Bisagno, “Jesus Christ is everything God has to say about Himself.”
3. EVERLASTING LOVE IN THE CRUCIFIXION
The cross is the ultimate statement of the love of God. No one can ever look at the cross again without knowing “I am loved.” When He died on Calvary, the Lord Jesus was the One making the offering (our High Priest), He was the offering itself (our Sacrifice), and He is the One to whom the offering was made (He is God). These truths, taught in the Epistle to the Hebrews, stagger our imagination.
“Christ died for us.”
“Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God!” (I John 3:1)
You are loved, now and forever, child of God.
“Who shall separate us from the love of God?”
Candidates for that dubious honor have been many over the centuries.
“But I am persuaded that neither death nor life, angels nor principalities, things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (See Romans 8 and stand in awe.)
Thank you, Father.
“You have loved me before the foundation of the world,” said Jesus to the Father on the night before He went to the cross (John 17:24).
God is love.
Deal with it.
This article on God’s everlasting love originally appeared here, and is used by permission.
